[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/5r7OTIh.png[/img]
[b][color=Aquamarine]wordcount:[/color][/b] 1330 (+3) (+35)
[b][color=Aquamarine]Midna: level 8[/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aquamarine]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color](81/80)
[b][color=Aquamarine]Location:[/color][/b]  Sandswept Sky - Train
[color=Aquamarine]Warp Charges:[/color] 1
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Virgin Victory teleport room
Top of the Split mountain
Outside the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage
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Inside and out of the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage the wasp’s nest’s rage was cooling from a frantic inferno to a simmering range. Neither the intruders nor the captives could be found, no matter how far the sisters scouted out into the snow. It was as if they had jumped off of the roof and then simply vanished into thin air.

Which was, of course, exactly what had happened, as Midna had swiftly whisked everyone back to the virgin victory via her twilight warp. However, the mountain still held unfinished business for her, and this time she was not going to put the others in danger for the rest of her little side quest. So once she (and her minions) were healed up, rested and recovered, it was back into the fray for her while the others headed off after the train riders.

First thing’s first, she teleported back to the warpstone they’d set up a closet inside the convent, adding another few more tallies to the kill list in the process when she appeared right beside some suspicious sisters prodding the out of place stone.

She then stashed that rock in the twilight realm, jumped back to the other warp stone atop the mountain before anyone responded to the sound of violence, stored it too, and finally used her own warp system to return to the entrance of the convent to start the next leg of her descent. 

Slipping from shadow to shadow the princess made quick work of avoiding the religious weirdos spreading out across their section of the mountain, then slipped down through the ice cold caverns and equally chilly catacombs, the darkness within the mountain giving her endless ways to just shadow skip past any and all threats.

Knowing the way back certainly helped a whole bunch as well, and soon enough she was back in High Hrothgar, home of the greybeards and the highest (sane) bastion of civilization on the mountain where the heroes had taken a break during their climb. 

Midna did the same here, and traded a few words with their leader Arngeir over a light lunch regarding both the true nature of the Convent, the elder promising they would warn anyone else climbing the mountain of this danger so that the fate of the faithful would not be repeated, and about the rest of their climb as well to which he listened with polite interest.

She also asked him about those that had turned back, and found that Sora, Mao and Minamoto had all passed through on their way down, and were presumably back at Tostarena Town by now, as long as they hadn’t run into trouble on the way. 

With information traded the princess bade the greybeards farewell and headed down to where they had met the man entombed in the iron statue who’s request for oil had begun this whole side adventure. Midna wasn’t sure how to feel about him now that she knew all about the place the oil he desired came from, but his request had indirectly saved two lives, so she still felt she owed him his strange last wish.

Retracing the party’s steps, she found him, and found that when he had said ‘Now, let my numbed arm become another branch of this withered olive tree’ he had been quite literal, as his exposed arm had indeed become a [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/blasphemous/images/3/37/Gemino_Branch_arm.png]tree branch[/url] while they had been away. His half exposed face, however, remained human and its eye opened in order to look down at at her when she approached, boots crunching on the snow.

A hoarse voice tried to speak, but no words could come, and all the entombed man could do was watch with anticipation and then relief as the princess brushed a hand over her palm and summoned the little thimble of oil from the twilight realm, its contents still piping hot despite the time passed.

She rose up into the air before him, holding up the thimble, only to hesitate before doing the deed. [color=Aquamarine]”I…”[/color] she began to say, and then bit her tongue. This poor soul did not need to hear her disparaging his last wish, this she knew, and so instead she simply said [color=Aquamarine]”Here. Be at peace”[/color] and looked away as she ‘blessed’ him with the scorching oil.


In a response there came a cry of pain and rapture, and then a the words

“I feel the boiling oil entering my frigid veins.
I can still answer the call…”

Then, nothing more. Midna tried to get his attention a few more times and then sighed. She turned. Began to drift away, and then turned again to look at him one last time, only for her eyes to go wide.

[color=Aquamarine]”What. Where?”[/color] she asked, seeing the statue suddenly empty. At first she thought he had simply turned to ash, but none was to be found inside the statue, nor was his spirit. Then she looked down and saw that there were footsteps in the snow, leading down the mountain.

She had no idea how he had moved so fast or so silently, or even escaped from the sealed statue, but she followed his steps nonetheless, his footprints becoming surrounded by more and more root like impressions till they entered a cave. Midna followed, and gasped as she came across a field of [url=https://i.imgur.com/lWinuyV.png]lumionse flowers[/url] within the cave, and then despair as she saw what had become of Gemino.

The man was a man no more, but instead had been consumed by wizened bark, branch and roots to such an extent that he had become a [url=https://i.imgur.com/CDusJbl.png]tree[/url], one that knelt before a [url=https://i.imgur.com/R75wkKm.png]coffin[/url] surrounded by other figures who had turned into trees just like him.

[color=Aquamarine]”Was this the call? Why? Who even is this?”[/color] the princess asked the dead as she floated across the field of flowers to avoid stepping on them, as the man had somehow also avoided doing so, and examined the tomb upon which she found a name: [color=Aquamarine]”Engracia?”[/color]

She had no context for any of this, least of all who this was.  Was she to blame for Gemino’s state or if she had been a last respite for him before the curse took him. She had no idea.

 In the end all she could say was [color=Aquamarine]”At least this is a better place to die than that barren slope”[/color] while picking a few shining flowers and placing them on the tomb, an offering to Gemino as much as it was to this woman whom he had come to pay his respects to in his final moments, willingly or not.

Then, after a few moments of silence for the departed, she left, the princess rendered equal parts confused and sorrowful by the whole ordeal. Yet it wasn’t at an end quite yet. As she exited the cave and returned to the path she saw the statue he had been trapped in once again. Yet rather than remain as she had left it, it now sported a bloom of frozen flowers at its feet and, sitting in their midst, a bright red string, its luster contrasting greatly with the white snow. Upon its length sat a single [url=https://blasphemous.fandom.com/wiki/Frozen_Olive]frozen olive[/url] strung up like a rosary bead. 

A strange and yet fitting parting gift from this misbegotten mountain.

With the string draped around her neck the Twilight Princess descended it at a breakneck pace atop her Wolf-Dran steed, blasting through the monster infested slopes, past the slumbering bear and through its autumn dream, alongside the racers of the Redstone City and finally back down to Tostarena Town where a happy reunion was had and a trio of allies returned to the fold.

Then, one last twilight gate opened in the vicinity of the mountain and the Princess finally left it behind, now with Sora, Mao and Minamoto in tow. It was well past time she and it parted ways in Midna’s opinion, and besides, they had a train to catch. 

[hider=items]
Claimed spirits: Harbinger, 3 Sister of the Charred Visage

Gained: 
Rosary: Rope knot made from the threads of habits of monks deceased in ancient times, crafted by Engracia to whom all other’s works paled to such an extent they were branded a heretical. Holds Beads that can grant boons to the wearer.
Beads: 
Frozen Olive: Summer fruit trapped in an endless winter. Born from an olive tree turned into a prison, its frosted oils bolster the wearer's defenses (by 50%) when their strength is nearly exhausted (at 20% or less hp).
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