The multicolored trees casted dim shadows over Kade as he walked through the clearings.
When he wasn't around people he was just as quiet and cold as Laurence, barely dazing off into any other thoughts and beaming toward the goal at all times. However, he couldn't ever be so stern around others within the capitol, he almost feels like he owes them something for all the support they have given him, even though he shared no mutual bias towards them. The only mutual care he shared with was his division members and somehow Laurence, which he questioned every single day. The man was not at all cherry nor likable, but still, he wanted to help him.
Maybe it was that he saw through his pains, but Kade never made friends in that fashion.
Upon approaching the Bladed Gorge he recounted the materials The Empress told him to collect. Surrounding the pit was a thick layer of spectral fog, blowing jewel waterdrops all over the pines and shrubbery. Glowing fairies fluttered under and through the foliage, surrounding a lacewing in a defensive barrier. Out of all the regions of the Hallow, this had to be his favorite. The still, cold air made him mellow down, as he studied the flora around him. Nevertheless, he had to collect the souls before it was due. Kade sprouted a pair of seraph wings and prepared to dive in.
"Kade?"
He heard a voice behind him calling his name. A black sunhat sat over her head, decorated with white roses. Half of her face was covered with her hair, with demon runes scarred into the ends in requiem blaze. A division brooch was clipped onto her black and silver jacket, with grave pendants hung around her neck. With each step, all of the grass withered away under her feet.
"Oh, hey Taph, didn't think I would see you here," Kade responded.
"Yeah...Fenreith said to call you back to the capitol, she said Yharim needs you for a mission. What are you doing here anyway?"
"Oh...um...just collecting crystal shards for my mutagens..." He lied.
"Aren't you prescribed those?"
"Well, yes...but the chem lab is out of service right now, and my corrosion date is coming up pretty soon, so I'll just make some myself.
Taph eyed him suspiciously, which you could barely tell because her eyes were always halfway closed with a dead stare, but she quickly let go and tensed down.
"Huh...ok sure, I guess. Welp, you come back soon, Yharim needs you in about 2 hours or so..."
Taph beamed back to the cities as Kade waved a small goodbye. He also never preferred her company over anything. She was pretty cute, however, the aura around her made him feel dead inside and her quiet tone was just not his type, which further escalated his wondering of why he enjoyed Laurence so much.
*sigh*...better get some souls before it's too late...holy shit it's spreading fast. He thought to himself, looking down at his arms.
Kade spread the wings and glided down into the caverns.
The man sat down on the scorched gravel, the magma around him silently slowly flowing down.
Sulfur dust lined the cracks of the cavern ceiling, choking the air in wafted waves of ash and yellow. The frog squeezed itself into his dirty cloak and nestled into the hood. He shifted his sight at the mangled metal arm and dropped it tumbling into the magma lake. Once the man tried to stand aches of immense pain erupted across his legs and spine. The beams of energy had scraped a huge line of sizzled skin like roasted firewood, along with the dozens of patches that marked all over. Gritting his teeth, the pain slowly dug through his tendons and into his mind. He tore a piece from his tattered pants and wrapped the smoking parts away.
That'll do, for now. I'd better head back before anything else comes.
He squeezed out of the crack exiting the cavern and swam out. The cold waters quickly eased the pain into slight pinches as he wiped away the charred. Upon him leaving the vent gardens was a marsh of gigantic lumenly crystallines. The seafloor was matted with thick layers of plant life fitted into an amorphous sludge. Sprouting from the sludge were spiraling eidolic willows which dense vines draped down in sparkling chains. Plasm gels excreted from the trees trickle down and seep into small pools that surround the still of each trunk.
The shimmering fractal formations twinkling in stratus starlight made him physically attracted and his veins surging with mana. Surrounding each shard were cultures of biomass mush, their stems rooting around it. The tint of each vine was an unusual murky teal, with its veins glowing a blue, much like the crystal's shade. Staring through the burning blue flashed thoughts that reminded him how crazy his situation is. Any regular human on this planet would likely go mad if they were stuck thousands of fathoms deep in the abyss with no social interaction, but it almost felt comforting for him.
Yet somehow he preferred better in the depths than among the bustling jungle cities, it was much less crowded down there with no possible noise. Even the freezing temperatures and insane pressure lashed no effects on his human half but some mild discomfort over spots on his shoulders, it was way preferable to the damp, stuffiness of the rainforest air.
I wonder how Kade is doing...
(*RUmBLe*)
A trailing belt of lumenly bolted across the waters above like a chain of stardust comets, illuminating the marsh in echoed spotlights. Each voidstone shell segment scraped and ground against each other, sending audible snaps rippling through the water. The wyrm arched its body as its abominable head peeked down at the man through the willows. Virile lumen mucus oozed and coated his mandibles as his mouth echoed out ghostly bellows. The little frog croaked in fear at the sight of Dread and hid its face.
(A Void-Forged? Oh I can't believe it!) Said the wyrm, Dread maniacally.
Huh, it's you again, I-wait, how do you know that?
(Oh,ohoho silly Wrath...don't you know that all our souls are linked together, I can hear everything.)
Oh, well, that's nice to know.
Yes, it is most certainly a gift to have such power on our side, this will most certainly speed up the process toward reawakening. Cthulhu explained
('Tch, you make that sound like we're on a team.)
A tiny glimmer of light beamed from above, followed by a wave of energy. Only the right side of his veins glew, but an unusual cyan tone. The man peeled the overbrush out his way to the sight of a cube floating near the ends of the water. It was barely spottable through the darkness but bared an uncanny presence amongst the voidstone cliffs around it.
It looks as if that object sent out that concentrated mana pulse, something like that cannot go without a salvage.
Ugh, I'm tired...
The man reluctantly swam toward the object as Dread laid himself over the cliff. Upon coming closer to the object it was constructed from rusted steel plating and heavily armed. Two turrets fixed above its vaulted door locked onto his head and began to fire shots at him, both quickly taken out by the frog's caustic vomit. He tried banging on the door but it was locked shut, the only way in was through a numbered code.
There's no way in this scrap, it's all locked...
Stick one tentacle in the crevice and try to cut down the spring locks.
He did what he has told and stuck a tiny tentacle through the doorframe. Upon some wiggling, he managed to find the locks and sawed them down easily. The door squeaked open as he made it into the airlock room. The floor was covered in loose and broken cables and wires, tangling over payload crates tucked into the corners. An old holographic table sat in front of the room, displaying corrupted blueprints while water from a shattered aquarium case trickled down into it.
(*CLANK*...CLANK*)
The sound of a hammer beating on metal passed out from another door. He slowly crept up onto the frame and put his ear next to the metal. Along with the sound of hammers were the same mechanical twitches sent out by the machine.
Cthulhu, pretty sure that same machine from before is in there.
It seems to be so, get ready because we're barging in.
He formed five more fresh tentacles from his back and slowly gripped onto the door handle with a firm tug. With the count of three and his body shaking, he hastily slid down the door and threw his arms in front of his head. The machine beeped with a blinking light on the side of its visor as it immediately snapped its squid tank head forward. Within half of a second, it had pounced right over him, blades out, slamming the man into the outer walls. He tried squeezing the tentacles out from being pinned by his back as the blades slowly dug deeper into his skin. Finally managing to tear out the tentacles, he bounded the machine down to the floor and got a couple of blasts in before it shredded them apart. Rapidly sweeping its blades it cut the man out of every which way, pinning him against the corner wall.
(This fight isn't winnable without you somehow sliding out from this corner...) said Dread teasingly.
Well, there is one way...
He tore out the reaper tooth from its tentacle and gripped it with another. With one swift cleave, the machine's body was instantaneously separated from its pair of legs, falling down onto the gritted floor. The man shoved the machine's body out of the way and headed into the room. Behind the autohammers was a rotting comms computer. The main display showed a looping audio recording of a deep, mechanical voice speaking in barely audible tunes.
*Ttch-t Research station 4 escorting payload to mai-(*ttchhhh*) Repeat signal if rea(*tchhkc-t*) Research station 4 escorting payload to main...
This setup seems to be almost dead, let's find that thing powering that mana signal before the whole thing corrodes.
The man unscrewed the power generator that sat aside the setup to find an urn fitted between two celestial magnets. Strange engravings of eldritch beings were carved into its voidstone walls and highlighted a blue when touched.
An urn?
These relics date back to r'lyehian times, they were laced with heavy spells to ensure whoever's remains were well guarded physically and spiritually. We can possibly unlace the enchantment and gain its mana quite easily.
He unlocked the magnets and quickly claimed the urn before it fell. Strolling out of the room he took another glance at the machine, as its barely functional arm twitched up to the side of its head as its visor defrosted. The tiny squid inside hid near the edges of the tank, prostrating its tentacles in front of its head.
Maybe this squid has some more information, this place looks like an abandoned research lab, possibly with some more secrets. Can't you peer through minds or something?
Hmmm...this mind feels strange, much more enhanced than average lifeforms. The cephalopod seems afraid...it isn't willing to think about anything useful to us...just about sending a signal.
The man slid back into the seawater, tugging the reaper teeth and turn behind him as he swam back to the cavern. Before long he had already reach the place in around a couple minutes. He placed the urn next to the tome crevice. Opening up the book and flipping to the empty page he drew an infusion circle in the page and labeling it correctly. Placing the reaper teeth onto the circle and sprinkling a dash of ground lumen powder the infusion burned into the tome as the leather cover became more intricate.
That's a days work of progress.
He climbed up to the kelp mattress and flung off the worn cultist cloak. Every tendon inside him was burning away but it barely bothered him. Cuts from his knees to his arms trickled blood down onto the stone but they didn't hurt at all. Somehow through all the pain and life taking incidents he felt no remorse, just a bit tired. The frog followed on behind him and snuggled next to him as he started at the cave ceiling.
...Laurence...do you have any dreams? Something to achieve?
Huh...why do you ask?
An average human being has something to look towards to. No sane being would risk their life every single day to help achieve somebody else's desire.
...I...don't know what to look forward to, just seems all downhill from here. Somehow...I don't feel like I'm putting anything on the life to do this, like I don't even care. Theres...somebody I can almost remember...caring about a lot.
Cthulhu fell silent as he slowly drifted into sleep.
Yharim sat down in the royal library, stacks of books surrounding him. Flipping through every page skimming every line about the eldritch.
"The mythical event known as The End was told to be a mass extinction of pure suffering extending to several decades."
"Oracles often pictured it as a time of pure darkness, void-born beings rising from every corner."
"When eldritch are slain on terraria, their souls return to Cthulhu, becoming his lifeblood."
*(sigh)* its no use...
He slid the boom back into the pile and picked up another named: "Oracle Teachings and Myths of the End". He flipped open the book and started to skim through all chapters involving myths. Through page after page he stopped at one near the end of the book.
"Oracles have seen the presence of a god-like eldritch warrior dating around The End. They say it wore a horned crown made of black twisted metal and a tattered cape as black as the abyss. Ribbons erupted out its back like curving spires. Wherever it treaded the sound of a blade scraping across the floor followed not far behind, as its face was masked with a storm of dismembered hands. It was told the being was ravenous, exterminating everything blocking its path with ease. No oracle has ever found out its intent or what happened to it."
Weapons: Void-forged Lacerates (not an item just magic), Abyss Shocker, Blood Thorn, Black Anurian
Tools: Magic mirror, Necronomicon stage: 1
Armor: (no armor)
Accessories: Eidolist cape (CalVan)