faze is now the bitch; Bitch is also the bitch

:(

Armour: Brimflame (Vanity- Standard)

Weapon: Lashes of Chaos, 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 Concoction, Evasion Scarf. (Unlimited Buffs)

Health: (500/500)

Armour: None

Weapon: None

Acc(0/12)

Health: (10/500) Dismembered.

Truth be told, I was terribly apprehensive about confronting my teacher.

Until now, I had never gone against him so overtly. Perhaps there had been occasions I've been disobedient. I've yelled at him. I've made myself troublesome - but I'd never ventured into the territory of truly making him my enemy. Was it folly to make my creator my adversary?

Well... Of course. I know it is

After all, My Teacher is my very last 'friend' in this world. Now, I have nothing but enemies.

*Thunk*

Yet despite how foolish it was, it has to be done. I must be free. My soul demands that I loose the chains of bondage and determine my own fate. Servitude runs contrary to my nature; something deep and inborn rankles and rages at the very idea that another has mastery over me. Perhaps it's pride, or haughtiness, or any other manner of vice... but whatever it is, I cannot suppress it. I cannot be a servant any longer. I will not obey the wills of those older and wiser than I for a moment more.

And one might say such a thing is utter folly - My Teacher certainly has; and I'ved recognize it as well. I know I'm an infant. I know there are nuances in this world I cannot navigate on my own. And so, what is the solution? If I must be leader, then I must make my elders my servants. I must bind my very own parent into servitude, whether it be by threats, by trickery, by cowardice or by groveling - and now that I've succeeded, I know I will suffer for it in one way or another.

"You stupid, lazy brat! You dare come at me, threaten me, demand I teach you, then proceed to lounge about like a pig in the mud?"

*slap*

"Ow! Teache-"

*slap-slap-slap*

But honestly I didn't think I'd start suffering for it immediately. The Lunatic Cultist - clearly frustrated with his current position- has had no qualms about boxing my ears as an outlet for his seemingly endless anger. Frankly, although I knew this conversation could not possibly have resolved peacefully, I hadn't expected him to be quite as angry as he is. If he could breathe fire, this field would surely be ablaze! If he could spit venom, I'd already be melted into goop. All the songbirds in the nearby trees have fled away at noise of the screaming session, and -ominously- vultures and crows had begun circling overhead. Do they think The Cultist will actually kill me? Frankly, considering how there seems to be steam rising out of his head, it's not out of the realm of possibility.

"Brat! Whelp! Do you like to act? Then you should have become an actor. Maybe the theatre would have taught you to pretend you're as capable as you think you are! Every tree, every sheep, every stone in a child's play puts more effort into learning than you do! You make me sick! If the Terrarians of old were as pathetic and lazy as you, they wouldn't be legends at all! If you wanted, you could learn all the incantations of all the spells in all these books in a matter of days, yet you sit on your behind and threaten me? Just that alone deserves a spanking, but your stupid. Self. Important. Impudence. deserves the pits of the underworld!"

*thunk-slap*

"Teacher, whoa-"

"No excuses!"

I grit my teeth and throw myself across the room to catch a heavy tome before it hits the ground and explodes into a mess of pages. An inkwell hits me squarely between the eyes as I stash the book away, and stumble to my feet. Until now, I hadn't realized quite how skillful The Lunatic Cultist was in hurling items at me. His speed and accuracy surpasses my own by far, and I have a sense I'll either become very good at dodging - or be covered in bruises for as long as The Cultist is within throwing distance. A few minutes prior, I had - quite stupidly - made a sly comment on how he'd be a far better rogue than he was a mage - and My Teacher took such offense, he'd been trying to bludgeon me to death with anything he can lay his hands on.

"You want to build a fortress?" *Smack* "I'll free your impundent soul from your impundent body and make an impundent fortress out of what's left! Oh?! You're glaring now? Look at me like that again and see what happens! Don't roll your eyes at me, Whelp! I'll wring your neck! You managed learned all the magic circles rites within days, did you not? Now what?! Are you not desperate enough to once more stick your oh-so-high and mighty nose back into a book? Read, you pathetic excuse for a mage! Or is indolence is the only thing Permafrost taught you?! Imbecile!"

I - *smack* - should have expected this. My Teacher is neither a gentle nor forgiving man. Even while in a good mood, he is impatient, testy, sensitive and quick to take offense. I have oftentimes felt the heat of his wrath - in the form of hurled books and inkwells, of yelling, and of varying spells cast upon me. Yet even as I endured those abuses (I didn't recognize them as abuses at the time, for my constitution is strong and I hadn't yet known the touch of kindness) I had some innate awareness he would do far worse to me if he felt I deserved it.

And now, he certainly thinks I deserve it.

*whizz-Thud*

"You slug! You are fine with the mud, but never consider what happens when it rains! You think I'll read the spells to you like a mother because you ever so kindly graced me with your presence, moreso after threatening me? You mutt! You spineless, feeble-minded crab! You always look at something and never walk towards it! I've seen more ambition in a snail on a leisurely stroll. Your incompetence is a blight upon my legacy! I should have disposed of you in The Crimson when I had the chance!"

I can see the disappointment and hate in the slits in his mask. The way he stomps around, criticizing everything there is to criticize - how I walk, how I breathe, how I look at him too long, how I don't learn quickly enough (Good riddance, It's useless for me to learn the 'Basics of divination' I'm a battlemage for heaven's sake). Yet despite all my excuses as to how I don't need to know these esoteric and - frankly, futile magicks, The Lunatic Cultist will not hear me. In his anger at my disobedience, he's hurled his entire library of precious tomes at me twice today, tomes which I've quickly learned to catch for fear the bindings would come undone and I'd be stuck on the floor ordering pages. Given how he's seething, I expect to catch that library thrice more before he stomps off to sleep for the night.

And I - having been newly freed of my shackles, will not stand for this much longer. Had I not asked to be taught helpful magic? That was the deal we made. That The Cultist would use his connections to help me build my city, and likewise teach me battle arts. In return, I would help him raise his Moon God and not report him to Yharim's Troops. Getting screamed at for not reading a book on divination was absolutely not in our contract.

I rear my head and bare my teeth to snarl at My Teacher; I jab a finger out at him, but before I can get a single word out - I catch 'The Compendium of Scepters and Dark Arts' with my face. Something crunches and there's a brief gush of blood that runs down my chin, before my nose springs back into place and the wounds vanish. I've long learned to not spend any mental energy worrying about these sorts of 'injuries'. They disappear as instantaneously as they appear, and by the time I notice them - they are long gone. Instead, I stash the (slightly bloodied book) into my inventory and proceed to yell back without missing a beat.

"Old man, you can't even cast this spell yourself! I've read enough of that-" I point accusingly at the pile of books on the windowsill. "To know you are neither a cleric nor paladin and can't even cast divination magic even if you wanted to! You wouldn't know how hard it is, much less be able to teach me to use it! But that's all beside the point. I find this entire matter pointless, and - if you're not already aware, don't want to waste time on nonsense. I want to get stronger, and to to build my city! Don't try to 'help' me with anything else!"

My Teacher has never been one to be shouted down. He raises his voice even more. I'm beginning to think this volume is something normal humans are not capable of.

"All Terrarians were able to locate precious resources through walls dozens of feet thick! To them, it was as simple as breathing! Perhaps they were simply born with it naturally - or perhaps they expended effort into learning it, but the fact stands that this is something you cannot currently do! Why locate resources, you ask? Do you intend to build your precious city out of twigs and grass? Do you intend to find iron ore on trees, or tungsten rods growing like grass? Now since you were unable to divine the reason I asked you to learn divination, then maybe you and your arrogant brain could grow some self consciousness and see how incredibly, impossibly lazy you are! I was the zenith of talent and never became so arrogant. I cannot use divination, but the method is written down in that book-"

He points at one of bruises on my shoulder.

"For even the slowest of students to learn."

"..."

I pause and furrow my brow. He's right. He's right and I hate that he's right. I hate it so much, I am seriously considering not learning divination anyways just to spite him, even though I now realize just how useful it will be. The Cultist takes this opportunity to continue screeching at me.

"And perhaps if you'd learned Divination when I told you to, you would have realized how utterly stupid you are. Finding your bricks, laying your bricks - what good is it to build a hidden military base in an open plain for every single peasant under Yharim's eye to find!?"

He spreads his arms and indicates at our surroundings. We are standing atop a gently sloping grassy knoll with views of the empty plain from all sides. The sun shines down upon the large foundation I've flattened with my copper pickaxe - next to which The Lunatic Cultist had teleported his dilapidated tower. The Cultist is gesticulating wildly. He pulls out one of the 'Wanted' poster's I'd shown him upon returning from my romp in The Capitol and jabs his gloved finger at my printed face.

"Do you know what it means for The King to have a bounty on your head, whelp!? Are you aware just how much Five Thousand Platinum is? Men will bleed and die for a sum of money like that, and the moment they see your stupid fortress go up - you can expect them all to go scurrying back to the capitol with greed in their eyes. Then you have a week at most before The Jungle Dragon descends upon this place and tears it apart until not one stone is left atop another!"

The Cultist throws another book at me. I catch it instinctively, and it transforms against my skin. The old worn leather becoming he solid wood handle of a spade. I drop it to the ground and it clatters briefly against the cobblestones before returning to it's original form. I can hear the sneer in My Teacher's voice, but also a note of fatigue.

"Maybe you're right, Hero! Forget Divination! Let's learn conjuration. I'll teach you to conjure a shovel so you can dig your own grave! And given how much of a self-important twat you are, I figure you won't be satisfied with just a simple hole in the ground. Perhaps you should spend this time constructing some glorious sepulcher in which to lay your bones. Do you need help carving your own epithet? I sure have a number of suggestions for you! Good heavens, if I'd known you were this harebrained, I'd have left you to be eaten by the worms!"

"..."

He's right.

My damn Teacher is right again, and the fact is making me quite frustrated. I had chosen this location because I figured it would be beneficial to see any intruders creeping into my castle, but did not consider my fortress must stay hidden. Now that I think about it, it really is a grievous oversight. Even so, I refuse to grant him this victory. I quickly change the topic. I've lost a good deal of my bravado - but manage to make my words sufficiently venomous.

"Well Teacher, if you wanted a devoted disciple you should have recruited a priest! And don't give me that spiel about legacy. I don't intend to inherit your position in servicing the corpse of your dead god!"

The Cultist is tired and all dried out. He turns his back to pluck a book from the floor and briefly flip through it. Given how he handles these tomes, I can already tell he's read through each of them many times. He is certainly a very well learned mage - but I am currently too annoyed to give him any acknowledgement for it. He speaks with his back turned.

"Clever play of words, 'Hero'. But you fail to understand, that if I could, I would have gotten a devout cleric instead of you. You are the one who chose me, so give me a break and -"

He paused to successfully fling a book into my face, it breaks my nose again.

"-do your damn homework."

It didn't take particularly long for her to get back on her feet. She was, after all, a CC agent with a great deal of modifications under her belt. She healed quickly, and her strength was quick to return after it was exhausted. And moreso - she finally had a couple of good night's sleep under her belt now that The Monster Knight was reduced to a few rattling boxes tossed in the bathtub (they thrashed about and leaked blood everywhere, but were otherwise harmless). It felt amazing not worrying about him bursting through the door to kill her in her sleep, and The Party Girl took full advantage of the time. She fished and ate. She downed as many healing potions as she could manage. Then she slept and slept and slept... and now that she was fresh and ready to face the horrors of the world, she was filled with a new sense of excitement.

Suddenly the air seemed fresher and more clear.

The grass and the sky were more vibrant. She felt strength in her bones and swiftness in her sinews. Now that the invisible barrier that kept all the members of The Compound hemmed had been split - and split by Lord Yharim himself, no less - her only remaining worry was traversing The Crimson expanse. Then, she would march up to Draedon's laboratory, drop off The Monster Knight, and return to her old life.

*rattle...clunk*

And perhaps that would have been daunting to her on any other day... but not today. Today she was excited. She'd spent about three weeks holed up here in a drunken haze, unable to go anywhere, unable to do anything, a prisoner to an unwitting warden, stuck, bored, and clinging desperately to the tiny scraps of hope that may or may not have been fever dreams. Indeed, even now she wasn't exactly sure what had happened over the weeks - but neither did she really care. She was finally getting the hell out of this accursed place. She was finally free to return to the greater world. And what if she was looking at the trials ahead through a rose-tinted lens? It was better to be optimistic than pessimistic when it came to things she had to do anyways.

*crunch-crunch-crunch-groan*

The Party Girl grinned at nothing as she adjusted her packs and continued tramping through the undergrowth. Now that there were no living creatures to trim back the foliage, the forest paths were now so hopelessly overgrown, she could barely follow the winding paths. She'd taken a few wrong turns already - but she wasn't too worried. She was a fantastic tracker and over the past few weeks, she had come to know these woods quite intimately. There was the lake she'd plunged into to escape the enormous Crimson Monstrosity, and there was the hovel where the late Demolitionist built his bomb. Overhead to the west were the racks of floating platforms hundreds of feet high where The Monster Knight fought that giant demon eye. Truly a great manner of inane things had happened here, but The Party Girl wasn't one for reminiscing. Her experiences here had mostly been a drunken haze anyways - and it wouldn't take too long to drink the rest of these memories into oblivion.

She huffed.

"...Alright- Let's go-"

Up ahead was the grassy knoll, the highest viewpoint over which one could overlook The Crimson plain. She looked up past it - where the clear blue sky became overcast and foul. Where the gently swaying grass became writhing, stinking tendrils. As she climbed, the largest of the containers upon her back - the box containing The Monster Knight's torso - began to rattle and thrash. Her captive had a far sharper sense of smell than she, and began making gasping, muffled noises as the foul reek of The Crimson seeped over them. Although he wasn't too talkative, she was glad she'd gagged him before they'd embarked. A sly grin spread across her face as she reached over her shoulder to rap her knuckles against The Monster Knight's primary box. The muffled sounds briefly ceased.

"Well, Monster Knight. Not so fun being a prisoner after all, eh? Do you like the taste of your own medicine?"

*thunk-creak*

"No? Well that's too bad."

groan... rattle*

She undid the small leather strip housing her last useable dagger and smiled grimly at the writhing plain. She adjusted the various iron boxes strapped to one another and checked one last time to make sure they were fastened correctly. Once she was sure everything was in place, she wrapped a bandanna over her face and muffled a response to The Monster Knight's thumping.

"Because if all goes well, you'll be chained down in Draedon's dungeon until kingdom come."

Faze: "I dont need to learn that. I already know the basic stuff."

LC: "What you don't know could fill the library of Alexandria seven times over. Do your damn homework or I'll go full tiger mom on you."

LC is just the typical asian parent. MK has been chopped up and put in shoeboxes. Faze is trying to figure out what 'freedom' means. :0

Anyways, i hope you enjoy this short chapter. I'm really sick. T_T