[centre][h2][colour=#800020]Waking Up - The Second Mistake[/colour][/h2][/centre] Lined eyes groggily opened to face a stone ceiling. It felt as though a layer of dust took flight off of Cotazur’s face as he weakly smacked desert lips and turned his head. Where, where was he? He tried to push himself to a seat but stopped in his movement as a fiery pain stabbed him through the torso. In that instant, a rush of memories returned. The rock, the voices, the beast… The wound. He laid back down with a thump and tried lifting just his head instead. His crusty eyes settled on a belt of reeds around his waist, their yellow colour only slightly tainted by spots of red just over the centre of the stinging pain. He was close to healing - how long had he been out? A rush of fabric hinted at an intruder and Cotazur pushed himself to a seat despite the pain. Wet pats of naked feet pittered against damp stone and the flicker of a torch unveiled more features of the room, or more specifically, the cave. Cotazur sucked in a slow breath and, gathering his strength, summoned a small dagger into his hand. The steps came closer; Cotazur swiftly hid the dagger behind his back. Come on now, you little shit - coming to finish the job, huh? Come on… COME ON. “Oh!” said a gentle face as the torch rounded the corner and came into view. Cotazur stiffened. Before him stood a young woman, only just barely at the end of her teens, holding a bark tray with something steaming. The god pulled his legs a bit further in; the dagger hand was wound up like a spring. The girl’s smile waned, but only barely. “Oh, no need to be scared of me, stranger. I mean you no harm. I just didn’t know you’d woken up already.” She knelt down next to him, prompting Cotazur to realise he had been laying on a reed mat on the floor. “You were barely breathing when we found you. My father sewed your wound shut as best he could - the belt is just to make sure it stays clean.” She lifted a small bark bowl off the tray and set the torch in a hole between some stones. Her words relieved some tension in Cotazur’s body, and his intense eyes stared into hers with drilling properties. The girl met them briefly and returned the stare with a short-lived smile - Cotazur could outstare a fish. Her eyes were quick to return to her task. The graying man’s intense gaze shifted to the steaming bowl. “How long have I been asleep?” he demanded as he took the bowl from her a little too harshly and gave it a sharp sip. The girl recoiled slightly but showed only momentary annoyance at his behaviour. “We found you three days ago,” she answered. “You didn’t show much sign of life beyond your breathing until yesterday evening. My father’s hand nearly blistered at the warmth of your fever, I’ll tell ya…” she giggled politely. Cotazur stared wordlessly back. “And then,” she continued with a flat mouth, “you rambled quite a bit in your sleep. You… Cursed a lot.” Cotazur blinked for the first time since he had awoken. “What did I say?” The girl blinked back. “W-well, from what I remember–” “The exact details - WHAT DID I SAY?!” he screamed suddenly. The girl threw herself back. “H-hey! Hey, okay, it’s alright. You’re safe, okay? No, no need to shout, alright?” She swallowed and eyed the cave entrance. Cotazur panted like a sprinter. The girl stood up. “I am sorry for disturbing you. I’ll leave you be.” “NO. No.” In a second, Cotazur was standing up and blocking the entrance. The girl froze. “How are you–” “No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, would you–...” Cotazur held up his hands in a small gesture. The girl positioned her body sideways in defense. “Would you… Stay, please? I’m… I’m really… Just really…” He searched visibly for words, his eyes darting back and forth like flies swimming in milk. “... I want to thank you, for nursing me back to health.” The girl’s lip quivered. “Y-yeah. Of course.” Her eyes bypassed him and yearned for the exit. “I’ll… I’ll get you some more broth, sounds good?” “No, I mean, I am really, really grateful. Like, I cannot overstate my gratitude, really.” “Yeah, uh-huh, that’s very kind of you to say.” Another desperate glance. “You sure you aren’t hungry? A-actually, I can hear my dad calling me and–” “You know what? I want to give you a hug. How about a hug, hmm? Come on, bring it in here.” “Actually, I really think I should–” “No, no, no, you have to let me show my gratitude first. Come on, see? Now we’re hugging and I am showing you–” “P-please, you’re– being–...” “- that I am very, very satisfied with your service, or possibly favour for me–...” “- you’re— hurting… m–...” “- which I will be sure to repay in kind.” [i]Snap.[/i] Like an empty sack, the girl collapsed to the ground as soon as he released her, white foam dripping out of her mouth. Cotazur blinked. “Hello?” He gave the girl a gentle kick then looked around. “Hello? Did you fall asleep?” Sensing beads of sweat form down his back, he knelt down and shook her. “Hey! Hey, what’s going on?! Are you playing a trick on me? ARE YOU PLAYING A TRICK ON ME, YOU FUCKING WHORE?!” He picked up the corpse and shook it so hard that many more bones inside the fleshy bag began to rattle. He pushed it up against the wall and smacked it bloody, though no reaction other than the straight physical ones could be discerned upon that once sweet face. Cotazur’s breathing was the only sound in the cave. [i]Pat, pat, pat…[/i] No… No, it wasn’t. “Grisha?” came a gruff voice. “Grisha, are you alright? I heard shouting and–” He turned the corner and saw the maltreated corpse of the girl. “Gr–” was the only sound he could muster before his throat opened up and spilled blood all over Cotazur’s arm. The now crimson dagger glistened in the light of the torches around the cave, and Cotazur’s breathing overtook the soundscape once more. Fuck… Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck… “Kolja? Grisha? Is everything okay in there?” Fuck. [hr] A long distance away, a blood-drenched man was crossing an eternal black desert with crimson storms and plague-green skies. His left hand wielded a dagger; his right wielded a rapier. Both had gluttoned themselves on both flesh and blood that day. Cotazur’s face lacked any emotion; as did his eyes. “This wasn’t my fault,” he repeated to himself for the 13 771st time. He had counted. For every time he said it, the world agreed a little more than this hadn’t been his fault. The voices said so. “This wasn’t my fault.” 13 772. On the horizon, a crack of lightning revealed a colossal, pillaring silhouette through the red sand on the wind. “This wasn’t my fault.” 13 773. “I’m a good person.” 4 156. From the approaching node, a deep growl rumbled through the ground. “This wasn’t my fault.” A crimson shadow in the wind appeared from behind the node, its silhouette revealing several arms, heads and legs. “This wasn’t my fault.” Another roar signaled the monster’s charge. A ten-armed, twenty-legged beast with four heads and eight jaws fell down upon him from the hill of the node. The monster got the first strike, descending on the god in his guilt-tripping trance. Three arms slapped Cotazur to the right, sending him flying several hundred metres. A crater formed around the man and he pushed himself slowly to his feet again. “It… It wasn’t my fault…” He coughed up bloody phlegm. “I didn’t deserve to be treated like that.” Tremors rocked the earth as the monster barreled towards him. Cotazur’s trance still had him trapped, but his rage was beginning to sense its direction. His eyes filled with a ravenous fury that would see his clothing even redder than it already was. “That, that fucking whore… She tricked me. That fucking pussy, he tricked me… They all, they all fucking tricked me. Over and over, and over, and over…” He kicked off against the beast and jabbed the dagger up into the roof of one of the beast’s eight mouths. The creature screamed and closed the jaws around the arm in question. Cotazur grit his teeth and snarled, jabbing the rapier into one of the other four heads as best he could, but the god was outarmed, outlegged and outmouthed. His left leg was caught in another mouth, and his right arm was grabbed by four arms which proceeded to pull with the might of three elephants. Cotazur squealed in agony and managed to kick one head hard enough to break one jaw, but that wouldn’t help him much. “FUCK! You… Piece of…” He retracted his right arm as best he could, but even divine power could hardly combat four, now five, six arms pulling in the opposite direction. “RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” In a desperate shift of momentum, Cotazur carved the dagger in his left hand out through the head it had been stabbed through and, getting just the element of suddenness that it needed, carved off the fingers of four out of six arms holding his right. The monster’s grip slipped, partially lubed by all the blood, and Cotazur’s right arm was free, though dislocated to the point where he couldn’t use it. Still, with one arm free, he swung it back and used the momentum to charge up a better kick, breaking the jaw holding his left arm. The monster stumbled back, now down three out of eight mouths and beginning to seriously contemplate running to lick its wounds. In its agony, it dropped Cotazur to the ground. The god, riding on pure adrenaline despite a dislocated arm, a nearly chewed-off arm and a broken leg, jumped at the monster again, though with much less vigour. His right arm could still move, so with it, he grabbed the rapier still stuck inside one of the heads and just started stabbing furiously. “I AM INNOCENT! I did nothing wrong! I did nothing wrong!” His hand conjured forth an axe and he switched to a chopping motion. “I did nothing wrong! It wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t my fault!” The axe grew bigger and heavier, yet it still kept up its speed. In fact, the speed increased as the chops grew bloodier. “Wasn’t my fault! Wasn’t my fault! Wasnmyfault! Wasnmyfault! Wasnmyfault! Wasnmyfault! My-FAULT! My-FAULT! My-FAULT! My-FAULT! FAULT! FAULT! FAULT! FAULT! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” The pulp remains of the monster were being dug several metres into the ground by the ceaseless chopping. The axe blade was the size of a fully grown man, yet Cotazur swung it with such speed that one could mistake him for chopping carrots. Only after a full hour, when the hole was a half kilometre deep and the monster long since had been ground up finer than the sand on the wind, did Cotazur stop chopping. Within a minute, the axe had shrunk down to a simple hatchet. Empty eyes studied the ground, almost searching for the remains of his foe which could not be said to exist anymore. Any and all traces were completely and utterly gone. He was victorious. A small smile cracked across Cotazur’s red-stained face. A small chuckle escaped him. “... hehehe…” He slowly began to ascend from the hole, his laugh intensifying over the coarse of the journey. “... Ahahahaha…” He dragged his useless leg behind him like a pulk. He ascended the hill on which the node stood and placed his hand upon it. In that instant, the sands on the wind fell to the ground; the green clouds parted to reveal a glorious sun bathing the land in nourishing light; the black dunes of sand turned to endless green, forested lowlands intermittently interrupted by small hills and cliffs before rising to the sky in the south in the form of colossal white mountains; in the far distance, the raging seas became tranquil shores with long, pearly beaches. In a final hurrah for the tumultuous waters, great fjords carved into the land and mighty rivers flower outwards from the taller inland areas. Cotazur gazed around the hill of green grass and the forests extending for miles down to the sea and up to the mountains. He ushered a final “hah” before he dropped his axe to the ground and collapsed again. “I am…” He coughed more blood. “... Flawless.” Then the world blackened again. [hider=Summy baka!] Cotazur wakes up in a cave. Someone has nursed him back to health. A girl enters the cave with some soup. Cotazur doesn’t know how to behave, so he tries to very awkwardly prevent her from leaving until he’s said thank you and given her a hug. During the hug, he breaks her back and kills her instantly. When her father comes to check up on her, he kills her too. Then he kills the whole village. Fast forward to later and Cotazur is approaching node 23 all bloodstained. There he encounters a monster which beats the shit out of him. He eventually gets the upper hand and makes an OP ass axe that he uses to chop the monster out of existence. He then caps node 23 and passes out again. [/hider] [hider=Moight!] 3 might - Made “Flawless” - an axe that, upon tasting blood, becomes lighter (except to the one receiving the blow) and larger, allowing the user to chop faster and harder with every chop. WARNING: Excessive chopping traps the user in a berserking stance. Remaining: 1 might. [/hider] [hider=Node 23 biome] Node 23 is a coastal lowland in the north with temperate forests and a tall, alpine mountain range in the south with snow-capped peaks and white-powdered pines. The border with node 18 flows seamlessly from grass to forest, while the border with node 26 is largely made cumbersome by the tall mountains. [/hider]