Wow sorry for not writing in a while. I hope you enjoy!

Armour: None

Weapon: None

Acc(0/12)

Health: (10/500) Dismembered.

Had they not know who she was - they'd say she was stunning.

A woman of ethereal beauty. Dark, dangerous, sultry, wicked - whose delicate horns and long, bright eyelashes were encrusted with intricate goldwork. Her nails and teeth were embedded with diamonds and rubies. Her skin was the colour of iridescent ash - and it caused her accessories to stand out all the more brightly. She shimmered as she perched there, bedecked in silks and jewelry and entirely out of place in this room of warriors and scholars - yet disdainfully confident. When she grinned and her golden eyes blew a little too wide, she gave off the impression that she owned the very ground she trod upon - nay, she owned every creature that dared wander into her sight.

(... We hope he is sufficient for your needs, my lord.)

(*muttering*)

And had her feet in hands not been painted in the blood and... was that part of somebody's intestines' roundabout her ankle? Well, anyone who valued their own life daren't mention it. Indeed, nobody in the King's Throne room dared utter even the slightest peep for fear of drawing The Witch's attention. The powerful men of this city: the Nobles, the military generals, the guild leaders, the judges - each of them were well aware that within The Witch's presence, all of their power and money and might could do nothing to protect them. To her, The Commandant of Gilgal was of equal importance to the beggar child in the fields. To her, the knowledge of Nostradamus made them no more valuable than the venison upon The King's dish.

For The Witch was the spectre of death. She was death itself.

Immovable, immortal, unreasonable, absolute.

Terrifying in her bloodstained glory. Alluring in her savage beauty. The Witch stood upon the pinnacle of The Arcana and none in this generation could hope to raise themselves against her. Truly she was an anomaly; a wicked miracle. For when she plunged her mind into the depths of insanity and obtained for herself overwhelming strength, she shared not the fate of the foolish weak-bodied mages who burst under the power of raw, unfiltered mana... no. She absorbed the chaos. She made it her own. She could not be crushed by such petty things as 'The boundless chaos of magic', and although her mind was lost to insanity, her body remained strong and her power became utterly insurmountable.

"Witch. The Bones."

And yet for all her might... For the fear that marched afore her. For the miasma which traced her footsteps. For the dreadful preeminence which crowned her name... Calamitas, The Witch of Massacre, was naught but a servant.

"Yes...sir."

*c-crackle...crunch*

The room was silent as the sound of creaking bones rang throughout the chamber. It was an inherently awful noise, like nails on a chalkboard or the distressed screaming of children - and with each yellowed bone that leapt from its sarcophagus to grind against ancient joints, every noble in attendance shuddered. The poor skeleton was being whipped together. Smashed into shape by the wiles of dark magic as it was drawn from the realm of death and bound into servitude by the word of The Great Witch. To whom did these bones belong? Was he a long-dead genius? Perhaps a diviner, or a magician, or a warrior... all in attendance wondered at this as they tentatively raised their eyes to behold The Witch's Handiwork. The Skeleton stood upright now, held together by vapory sinews and a ghostly miasma. It looked upon them with hollow, empty eyes - yet although common sense said The Skeleton could not see - each person seated in The Court could feel it's unsettling gaze piercing through them.

"Men of my court, I present to you your new high commandant. The recent spawn of Gilgal dared speak against me - so..."

The King lifted his chin, indicating to the three old man trembling at the foot of his throne.

"In order to preserve their influence, the yellow bellied Elders of Gilgal have desecrated their ancestors' grave. The bones of Gilgamesh, The Great Hero, now stand before you in service of your king!"

"..."

Silence echoed in the room. Some members of The Court sneered at the three elders kneeling before the throne, but most simply averted their eyes. There was no shame in currying The King's favour - for it was by his favor that all men lived. To lose The King's favor was death, for Lord Yharim commanded the spectre of death. He slew as he pleased and raised to life as he pleased, for The Great Witch was his blade - and there has yet to be a man who could withstand her blows.

"Gilgamesh?! The Great Hero?! Haha! Hehehe!"

The Witch bared her small white teeth and laughed aloud, her lips splitting across her face and stretching just slightly beyond what was normal. She pressed both palms against her cheeks and giggled girlishly as she swayed back and forth, heaving as if undecided between the throes of mirth and pain. As she bent over at the wait to clutch her stomach, the once-great hero began to tremble and thrash - dancing shamefully upon The Witch's puppet strings.

"No matter how strong they are... they cannot escape my death! He-hehe!"

"Calamitas-"

"...!"

Immediate obedience. The Witch's raucous laughter echoed briefly throughout the chamber before fading to an abrupt silence. So too that look of malicious joy in her eyes. For at The King's slightest utterance, she stopped very suddenly, seemingly having forgotten what she was laughing about. With a bit of confusion, she frowned to herself and looked around - then sat back down to chew at her jeweled thumbnails. The King cleared his throat and continued.

"Calamitas will patrol the border of the Capitol City to prevent any further attacks. I will not tolerate further terrorism by The Remnants of The Resistance. After all, I am a king who cares deeply for his subjects and prioritizes their safety above all else..."

Tension. Yharim paused, briefly raking his gaze across the lines of bowed heads in his court. When none so much as stirred, The King chuckled briefly. He nodded to a group of servants who quickly wheeled out a shining golden armour. They dressed the rattling bones in them, and after a few moments, the re-animated 'Gilgamesh' looked rather splendid indeed. Had they not seen him be raised from the dead just a moment ago - some of the more pugnacious nobles might have fancied following him in rebellion against The Tyrant.

"And while Our Witch protects the city... My New Commandant will hunt down these 'False Terrarians' to permanently rid us of such nuisances."

"Heavens, you must be famished! That bread is just an appetizer. You've been attacking it like you haven't eaten anything decent in a month!"

"Mhm!"

"Well let me get you some butter at least... Or would you prefer jam?"

"Marmalade. I love marmalade. I wouldn't eat butter if I were starving!"

"Ah. Of course!"

Given that he quite literally remembered everything that had ever happened to him, he really was quite shocked as to how inconsiderate he'd been to The Stylist. She was his Fiancée for heavens sake! For him not know what she liked to eat was absolutely thoughtless. He was The Guide. He knew exactly how each of his distant relatives took their coffee... so even though all his colleagues hated him, all his students despised him, and he was oftentimes under the influence of one kind of hallucinogenic spell or another - that was no excuse for being neglectful towards the woman he intended to marry. With some effort, The Guide masked his frustration and smiled sunnily at The Pink-Haired woman.

"Had a rough day, hun? You sure look frazzled. What happened?"

"Pirates. I thought they were going to kill me."

She briefly stopped wolfing down her third fancily baked breadstick to daintily dab her lips with a napkin and down her entire glass of brandy. She seemed more interested in filling her stomach than answering his questions, and her behavior was causing The Guide a great deal of second-hand embarrassment. The two of them were seated in some fancy restaurant on the east side of The University District, and were so sorely underdressed, he needed to bribe the hostess to let them through the door (The Stylist had insisted they eat immediately). Of course, The Guide wasn't looking his best. Nobody looked their best after fifty of their students lined up outside their office and attempted to gaslight them into thinking they'd been killed, then spending thirty minutes in the bathroom vomiting half digested flowers into the toilet. But The Stylist looked like she'd just crawled out of a warzone, and she didn't seem to care one bit. She had several nasty scrapes and bruises peppering her arms and legs. Her shirt was stained with blood and soil. Her hair was a disaster, and she had a very purple bruise on her cheek. For all intents and purposes, he looked like some angry drunk of a husband who had beaten up his wife and was now trying to buy her forgiveness with expensive food.

The Guide glanced worryingly around, before lowering his head and prying for clarification. As he spoke, the memories surfaced - as if being pulled in from a fog.

"Which pirates? Blackbeard from The Thieves' Guild, right? I'd hired them to rescue you. Their prices were exorbitant. They charged your weight in gold... which, of course, I was happy to pay."

The Stylist pursed her lips, thoroughly unimpressed.

"So that's why those damn pirates kept saying they wished I were fatter... I thought they were going to butcher me." She sighed and wrapped the jacket he'd lent her more securely over her shoulders. "And what's gold when The Monster Knight is at your beck and call? For you, he'd flood the streets with it-" The Stylist cut herself off, then shook her head and began apologizing. She seemed to sink into her seat.

"I'm sorry, Guide. I appreciate the rescue. I really do. I've just had a really hard day. I'm tired. I'm hungry. Please don't take my words to heart."

"Of course, Darling."

She gave him an odd look, before shrugging and continuing to attack the bread. The Guide took the time to recall the events surrounding the Pirate incident and found that his memory was... less detailed than what he was used to. He'd arrived in The Capitol... flying (perhaps by hot-air balloon? He must have been too distracted by the wind in his face to really know what vehicle he was travelling on) and spent the entire day buying trinkets in The Autumn Festival's Market (despite that he didn't like shopping much). He'd gone to eat some kebabs, was kidnapped shortly afterwards by The Thieves Guild, found a great deal of their soldiers dead in a warehouse - then offered to pay them in gold to fetch The Stylist, something they agreed to! Frankly, that whole series of events was almost nonsensical - but fact was often stranger than fiction and The Guide's memory had never failed him before. He had no reason to start doubting it now.

But still...

"Stylist, honey-"

She seemed to be slowing down with the bread, and was quick to give him her attention.

"What do you mean The 'Monster Night' is at my beck and call? I understand that young children often dress up as goblins and skeletons for the Autumn Festival, but-" He laughed jokingly, but stopped when she didn't seem amused. "Well, in either case. I wouldn't say I control this holiday to any extent. We sponsor one or two parade floats, but just that. My family must not be as influential as you might have assumed."

He smiled. The Stylist's expression rapidly descended into a glare. She jabbed a chipped nail at him and hissed.

"Guide, don't get cute with me. I'm talking about that white-eyed corpse bastard that we constantly had to convince not to murder us! Believe me, I want to forget that nightmare more than anyone - but I certainly am not ready to hear jokes making light of fucking Monster Knight! For all I know, he's lurking around The City, looking for us right now."

Her tirade began in a whisper and finished in shouting. The Stylist was seething, and some white-knighting Patrons were seething alongside her. Some glared accusingly at him and tutted at the air. Most were stealing glances at them and whispering to each other. Clearly, their spat was rapidly becoming tonight's live entertainment, and The Guide didn't like it one bit. He immediately began attempting to de-escalate.

"Stylist, please. Your Monster Knight won't be in This City. Our security is top notch, and I've heard a report that The Great Witch is patrolling the area in lieu of The Twins. There is no need to be anxious about some boogeyman, my-"

"Boogeyman?!" The Stylist slammed her small fist into the tabletop, causing the fine silverware to jump. She was gritting her teeth and glaring at him as if he were the devil himself. "Guide, that bastard tracks like a bloodhound. He flies like a bird. With the snap of his finger he can make dirt, or diamonds, or bombs, or living creatures. And worst of all, if he dies, he comes back to life!"

"..."

At the commotion, a burly waiter strode up to the table and - after searing him with a judgmental glare - bent at the waist to give The Stylist her marmalade and to refill her wineglass. When The Guide extended his glass to be refilled, the waiter plucked it up - muttered something about 'the public good' - and absconded with it to the kitchen. One person in the corner clapped exactly twice in a failed attempt to start an applause, before clearing his throat and pretending he hadn't.

And although all of this was rather distressing, but the most distressing thing of all was that The Guide hadn't an inking as to who or what this 'Monster Knight' was. As far as he was aware, The Stylist didn't seem excessively prone to fancy - so why was she so convinced an unkillable winged dog with the powers of free creation wished her ill? She didn't have a prior condition which caused her to see hallucinations, and she certainly wasn't joking around right now. Maybe her research on The Crimson Border had effected her psyche. Or did The Pirates give her something to smoke? Perhaps she had accidentally partaken in some illicit substance while on The Flying Dutchman?

That's the most likely case. Well balanced people don't suddenly start seeing boogeymen... I should take her to see a shrink.

The Guide gritted his teeth, made himself seem apologetic, and began to lie. The Stylist appeared to be on the edge of a psychotic break, so it was best to just appease her until she calmed down.

"I'm sorry, Hun. That was tasteless of me. It really was terribly scary - and I'm just coping in my own way. I never meant to make light of your trauma. Come, let's finish eating and get a good night's rest, okay? We'll visit the hospital to get those scrapes and bruises looked at... and maybe some holistic care as well. Sound good?"

"Yeah." The Party Girl sighed and downed another glass. "Thank you."

"Anything for my Fiancée."

A pause. The Stylist slowly placed her wineglass down.

"...your What?"

He never really slept.

Well... he slept while he was dead, but while alive - he didn't sleep.

Sometimes he felt it was a curse that the pits of unconsciousness were barred from him (granted, there were shockingly few things he didn't consider curses nowadays). But over the past few days especially, he sorely wished for the deep black velvet of sleep - of death. Yet although he yearned for it, death was not an easy for him to achieve whilst lacking all his limbs and gagged. How long had he been in this box, salivating on a rag with sharp spines digging bloody holes into his bare flesh? A day? Two? Seven? He didn't know. He'd lost too much blood to know. His body was cold and his skin was numb, and time always seemed to pass faster when there was hardly a drop left in his body...

(I don't care what you do with that Traitor CC Agent, don't you dare destroy my sample! Do you have any idea how Project Nephelim is going? I need every advantage I can get! We've got a fucking Terrarian running around out there that can't even die if he wanted to, and we haven't been able to produce anything even remotely capable of taking him down! This sample might be my breakthrough)

(Zoologist! Don't go back on your word, you Bitch! You promised to vindicate me! I'm no traitor and you know it! Ahh! Let me go-)

His eyeballs were moving sluggishly in his head as The Terrarian slowly recognized the voices shouting over him. One was a familiar voice, one was not. Both belonged to women and both were screaming enthusiastically at one another. Had his olfactory organs not been carved out, he could have more easily identified the parties involved in his imprisonment - but, to be completely honest - The Terrarian couldn't find it in himself to care. He tried to rouse himself. He gave himself a few half-hearted pep talks. He attempted to argue with that blunt, lethargic brick in his mind... but found it unresponsive. He wanted nothingness. He wanted to dig a hole somewhere and hide in it. He wanted to lay somewhere and stare at the clouds until he stopped thinking.

Apathy.

How miserable he'd become. He was once the type that could barely sit still. He would build and rebuild his houses, agonizing over every nook and cranny. He polished his windows. He waxed his floors. He trimmed curtains and shined chandeliers and pulled weeds and pruned his plants. He cut the grass and cleaned the dust and ... oh, he did so many things. He took pride in the work of his hands, and he protected what he'd made zealously. His beautiful little compound in the ring of sunflowers... The wonderful days he spent trekking amongst the old oaks beneath a blue sky and surrounded by emerald moss and...

*thunk-jostle*

And now... he didn't care at all. All he wanted was to die and be swallowed by that black void. He was stuck deep in a pit of apathy. He'd stewed in his grief so long, it'd become despair. He could try to imagine hope - but he couldn't see it. He couldn't believe it was there. The light in his darkness was merely a hallucination. A vision of the past. A trick of the mind...

(Agents, put The Party Girl into quarantine for now. If you want to execute her, you do if after I take a look at the sample and ask all the relevant questions. You- put on a pair of gloves and take the sample out.)

(Ma'am, are you sure? Clearly it's dangerous if it was brought to The Capitol by a Traitor-)

(Pour it out! Listen to me or the next time you come in for a tune-up you might find all your screws loose!)

(Yes Ma'am)

*Jostle-scrape*

With seemingly no warning at all, the box was wrenched upwards and the subsequent jolt drove a spike into his cheekbone. Another pierced his sternum and yet another, his groin. Blood began leaking from the many wounds, and The Terrarian gritted his teeth as he felt the slow trickle of warm fluid leak across his skin to dry against the interior of his box. This had happened innumerable times over the past few days. Sometimes the box was placed down and he had to deal with only a few of those spines digging into him. Sometimes he was shaken so wildly, he felt someone was attempting to flay the skin off his body. As a result, he was fairly sure the insides of his box were thoroughly coated in all manner of his bodily fluids - and given they must have begun to rot by now, he was glad he couldn't smell.

(Okay, spread that tarp and stand aside.)

Another jolt then a click overhead. The box tilted and he began to slide. And as he slid, those spikes he had come to hate so fervently left long furrowing wounds upon his tender flesh. But despite the injury, and despite the pain, The Terrarian found when he opened his eyes, he was blinded by light.

"Oh, goddammit! What the hell were those resistance bastards doing?! All his limbs are gone!"

"Shit! It stinks! Look at all that blood - this guys is good as dead! Lets put him out of his misery."

Light! It was light. The light of day. The light of dawn. He daren't close his eyes. He daren't even blink for fear it'd disappear the moment he looked away. There were several voices muttering about him - and as they spoke, each grew increasingly artificial. Several wavering shapes swam in the blinding glare. A sneer of disgust. An exclamation of horror. The Terrarian paid these things no mind. He stared through tears into the blinding white as if it were the only thing that would keep him from going back into that dark, cursed box.

"Ah, shut the hell up you you cruel bastards."

One of the larger shapes was hunched over him and carefully turned him over so he laid flat on his back. It was a strange shape, and The Terrarian briefly flickered his eyes from the window to analyze him. He was like nothing The Terrarian had seen before. Vaguely humanoid but with a bright cyan light emitting from the center of its face. Yet despite that it looked and sounded artificial, somehow it seemed to radiate a great deal of warmth. The Blue Figure chuckled.

"This poor fucker went through hell and he's still got the will to live, but you keep nagging him like that, he'll die for sure. Stop complaining and make yourself useful. You, go grab a blanket, alcohol, healing potion and bandages from medbay. You, empty out the other boxes. Hey Zoologist, this guy's your sample, right? So naturally, Draedon's paying for all this?"

A Fox woman looked dissapointingly at him. She sighed.

"... tch, fine."

"Hehe."

The Blue Figure leaned over him once more and The Terrarian felt the sharpness of a blade press briefly against his cheek. The gag fell away and he drew a deep breath. Truth be told, The Terrarian wasn't sure what was happening at all. He didn't know where he was, or what all the people wanted with him - but he did know he liked laying on the floor in the light far better than being crammed in that box. His addled brain could vague sense his amputated limbs were nearby - and given the blue figure had yet to try to harm him, he figured he'd implore him for help. After all, what was pride to him anymore? He opened his mouth and coughed out a ghastly wheeze.

"M-my arm-"

The Blue Figure's voice was apologetic. It sighed and patted him gingerly on his shoulder.

"Sorry man. Those Resistance bastards chopped everything off. We'll get you some prosthetics though... Draedon's footing the bill, so you'll be all right. I know this is a bit fast, but do you know who did this to you? Do you know what group they're from? Why-"

"Oy, Boss! Watch it!"

*thock*

"Whoa! Hey what the fuck! Catch that thing!"

His vision was beginning to adjust to the light by now, and The Terrarian found himself watching the rather ridiculous scene of two burly man outfitted head-to-toe in electronics attempting to capture his scurrying left arm as it scrambled about the cell. In the corner, a woman with large fox ears had pressed herself into a corner and was was screaming. Outside the cell bars, another cyborg-soldier dropped a crate of supplies and leapt to catch the flying arm about the wrist. He yelped and dropped it when it punched him in the jaw and began scurrying down the hall.

And through all the commotion, The Terrarian sighed and tilted his face towards the light.

He didn't know were he was.

He didn't know who these people were.

But perhaps... (he scarcely dared to think of it), perhaps things might get better?

...

Well... he'd just have to see.

*Give me a skit*

Rip PG lmao.

Also Cyborg is actually such a good dude. I really like him.