Shrike's Heart (#4)

[idolpro]

The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.

It's not quite a happy smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."

You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—

—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.

> Wake Up

Comments

Re: /o/

[gigadevilbreaker]

[So this sword wasn't the best at cutting. That didn't stop him from ducking low and using it as a blunt weapon to bludgeon these beasts at the knees. Horsewolves: they still run on their tippy toesies. He swings it like a woodsman's axe, arching wide, then striking up at their necks with Kohime's knife palmed in his hand.

Fire burned in his eyes as blood soaks his skin and he roars, with joy and rage alike,]

YIPPEE KI-YAY, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Re: /o/

[handpuppets]

[ You're outnumbered, these creatures are enormous and primordial and hungry enough to tear you to shreds, and you're still going after them with a knife and a training sword, trying to kneecap them.

Now that's a story, isn't it?

and suddenly the world around you is awash with light, like the sun has just dawned, and it's within you. when the light fades, it's brighter than it was—almost as if you yourself are glowing—and the sword you hold in your hand shines gold, sharp, and true.

you feel strong, healthy, alive, awake, unbending.

now what do you do with it? ]

Re: /o/

[gigadevilbreaker]

[oh i see i pulled a devil trigger

Not skipping a beat, he mows a line of horsewolves in a spinning blade, returns smoothly to a stance with the sword lined up to his eyes-- stabs, right into another's side, between the ribs. A sharp twist and jerk downwards empties its chest cavity, before cartwheeling back to dodge the incoming lunge of another demon.

With impeccable acrobatic Style, he brings his sword down on the neck of another horsewolf as he lands, uses it as leverage to spring off its body and wrenches the blade free in a spray of blood, then slams it through a new victim on the rebound.

It's definitely not refined enough to be a ballet of carnage, but... a breakdance of brutality, maybe?

Griffin feels fucking alive.]

Re: /o/

[handpuppets]

[ a breakdance of brutality it is. the creatures fall, one by one, a pile of fur and bone and gore, bleeding green onto the ground—and you can tell it's green, because, inexplicably, the sky is lightening, and the sun is starting to rise.

as the day dawns, and the creatures shudder into stillness, the glow fades from you, and your blade dims to ordinary steel, although it still retains its newly sharp edge. you can't stay that way, not now, but that feeling doesn't entirely leave you. You gain +1 WILLPOWER.

and then... ]