1st of Glade, 4622
Not much of a reaction was offered to the girl’s explanation of what had happened, and why she’d commissioned such a slaughter to begin with. Most of Arkash’s silence was due to the fact that he didn’t know what his companion was talking about; She spoke of Sunderers, Relics, Business. All of that apparently led to the ruin of her gang, to the crystallization of her leader.
He stared in silence for a moment in the dark of the desert’s night, illuminated at the front by the light of the roaring fire. With a deep exhale, Arkash took another bite from the corpse in his lap, then continued to chew through the ribcage with a few wet slaps of his grizzly jaws. A few sharp jerks of his head saw him tear away the meat before he slapped his mouth around it and swallowed hard to send it to his stomach. “What’s a Relic?” he asked at last as he took in another mouthful of biological debris.
The girl looked at him for a moment, scoffed a laugh then looked side to side. “…Like your gun,” she said with a gesture to the rifle, where it laid in the arms of Arkash’s demolished foe.
Arkash squinted at the thing while he chewed his mouthful, then swallowed as he asked “you call guns Relics?”
A roll of her eyes heralded her frustration with the question. “Do all guns shoot lightning in Lorien?” Came her quip, quite sarcastically. “It’s a Relic because it has that power; it’s been Strickened by a Sunderer.”
“Okay,” Arkash spoke an agitated rise in his tone. “Well what’s a Strickener and what’s a Sunderer?”
Izzy came to hold her head with one hand in wake of the question. Arkash continued to chew away at the carcass while he anticipated an answer, eager above the vague accumulation of annoyance in his gaze. “Let me start at the beginning,” She said at last, then drew one of the crystals she’d collected from her bag. “This is a Sunderscrap, it’s like the crystalized form of a Mark of Control, harvested from a mage with the Sunderstrike,” she spoke as she drew that same dagger-like implement from before. “You just stab a mage through the heart with this, and they’ll be crushed into a Sunderscrap…. Sometimes a few if you’re lucky.”
Arkash nodded in response to relay that he followed, then forced the last of that cadaver into his mouth, chewed through the bones like chalk, then swallowed the slurry without pause. The girl continued her explanation as Arkash stood to fetch another corpse, which he crudely dragged without care.
“…Sunderscraps can be used to Stricken objects with their power, which is to say, the power of mages…” She further explained.
Arkash’s eyes widened, if only for a second. “Oh, really?” He asked with intrigue. “I bet you’d make a great Sunderscrap then, wouldn’t you?”
Her laugh was as dry as the dunes they’d scaled on the way to the gang’s headquarters, and was quickly followed by a swift “shut up.”
Arkash laughed in return, amused by her reaction as he had been last time. As he settled down, however, his smile withdrew as he focused his hungry eyes on the fresh corpse in his claws, then sat before he bit through the cadaver’s neck and ripped away a clump of jagged, fleshy vessels. Izzy curled her nose a little at the sight, then shook her head.
“…You know, if you change your mind about that gang offer, I’d happily teach you,” she said again.
Arkash smiled as he snapped his jaws around a shard of the clavicle, then tilted his head back for Gravity to aid him in swallowing. He breathed out, briefly satisfied as the last of the scrap vanished into the threshold of his bottomless body. “I really don’t know why you want to start a gang with someone who’s literally eating people right in front of you…” Arkash began as he licked the dripping mess from his lips, “But I’ve gotta get back to Boghadar… I promised someone there I’d be back… Last month. We’re into the Glade now, right?” he thought for a moment, recounting the days, then nodded to himself.
“Well… They’re not people anymore,” she said simply. “They’re just clumps of meat in the shape of people. It’s gross, and watching you eat makes me feel fat, but I don’t mind,” she explained.
Arkash laughed as he continued to tear through the torso of his once-fresh carcass.
“But it’s a shame… I think you’d make some great Relics, too. Just hold on to the thought of the prick that… Well, you know,” She spoke with a gesture to his chest.
Arkash watched her for a moment, mouth squeezed around a dripping clump of meat while he registered her words. With a brief exhale, he nodded and swallowed. “Maybe someday,” Arkash said with a brief smile. “…If our paths cross again. Where will you go now? I’ll keep an eye out for you,” he offered.
Izzy smiled a little, then looked to the stone building behind them. “Well, this shit’s gonna get stolen pretty soon. I can’t hold it myself or I’d just stay here… Plus, all my fucking… Ugh.”
Arkash tilted his head as he chewed through another sundered scrap of flesh. He maintained eye contact as he swallowed the piece. “…What?”
“There’s a full-ass Sundering lab in there that’s just gonna get snatched up. There’s not enough Wurmblood in these chariots to even get my ass to Rustbucket, let alone with all that weight on it.” The girl finished with a kick to the sand.
Arkash watched for a moment, frowned, then brightened his eyes. “Oh, you know what? There’s a… Hmmm.” He paused too late. Izzy’s features were already alight with wonder.
“WHAT?!” She called. “Come on, don’t just leave me hanging! You have to tell me!”
Arkash rolled his red eyes with the beginnings of a grin. “Fine, fine. I’ve already let a friend of mine into the space, but… I’m sure he won’t mind some company. You’ve fed me well, so it’s fair.” He grinned with a gesture of his head to the bodies where they were piled.
The girl widened her eyes, then furrowed her brow. “You mean you have a place?” She asked. “Out here, in the Badlands?”
“Sorta…” Arkash explained with a wobble of his dripping claws. “It’s an old underground complex of caves with a hidden entrance… It looks like someone lived there at some point, but all the wood is so old that it’s crumbled to splinters,” he shrugged at his own observation, then took another hefty bite out of the cooling cadaver. Once he’d swallowed, he resumed. “Some bugs in there too, but that’s fine by you, right?”
She did squint a little at the mention of bugs. “What sorts of bugs?” Came her next question.
“Mostly spiders… Though some of them had like pincers and barbed tails,” he recalled with a glance at his forehead.
“Oh!” The girl returned. “Scorpions…! That’s just what I wanted in my next home,” she spoke with an obvious air of sarcasm, which Arkash rose a brow at.
“I mean fine, if you’d rather go headlong into the wasteland, that’s no skin off my back,” Arkash said with a shrug, then bit off another mouthful of the corpse to chew.
The girl curled her features again in the peripheral of his vision, and he grinned inward. “No, I’m sorry. I do want it, it’s just…” She paused, conflicted. “I really don’t want to wake up one day with scorpions all over me, you know?”
Arkash laughed at that, mouth full of mortal wreckage before he shut his jaws as much as he could, and swallowed the clump of meat. “Yeah, me neither. But they taste good if you pluck the stinger first.”
Her features twisted with a look of horror and disgust, utterly perturbed at the suggestion.
The rathor loosed another how of laughter, gore spattered jaws waving as he leaned back. "I'm totally kidding!" He wasn't. "I'll take you there right after you get your stuff together. Go and get whatever you need and I'll get through these bodies much faster," he assured with a grin and a motion of his clawed hand to the victims of his commissioned services.
As Izzy got up with the beginnings of a smile on her features, Arkash watched her wander off back to the complex. Once she'd passed the threshold of the door, Arkash fixed his gaze on the copious gore and blood to spatter his clothes, then tried to leech from the blood there. He focused his mind's eye on the etheric potency of the lifeblood, as he had a thousand times before... And found nothing. there was no power for him to siphon, no ether to manipulate.
His power hadn't returned, which he'd somewhat expected. Was the power to fling hardened blood weapons just innate to the Cardinal? Had Arkash learned it so quickly because of his experience with the Mark of Control? It was plausible, but he didn't know for sure. Perhaps his power would return over time?
After stuffing the last of his most recent steal into his mouth, he got up and fetched another corpse to feed on.
Not much of a reaction was offered to the girl’s explanation of what had happened, and why she’d commissioned such a slaughter to begin with. Most of Arkash’s silence was due to the fact that he didn’t know what his companion was talking about; She spoke of Sunderers, Relics, Business. All of that apparently led to the ruin of her gang, to the crystallization of her leader.
He stared in silence for a moment in the dark of the desert’s night, illuminated at the front by the light of the roaring fire. With a deep exhale, Arkash took another bite from the corpse in his lap, then continued to chew through the ribcage with a few wet slaps of his grizzly jaws. A few sharp jerks of his head saw him tear away the meat before he slapped his mouth around it and swallowed hard to send it to his stomach. “What’s a Relic?” he asked at last as he took in another mouthful of biological debris.
The girl looked at him for a moment, scoffed a laugh then looked side to side. “…Like your gun,” she said with a gesture to the rifle, where it laid in the arms of Arkash’s demolished foe.
Arkash squinted at the thing while he chewed his mouthful, then swallowed as he asked “you call guns Relics?”
A roll of her eyes heralded her frustration with the question. “Do all guns shoot lightning in Lorien?” Came her quip, quite sarcastically. “It’s a Relic because it has that power; it’s been Strickened by a Sunderer.”
“Okay,” Arkash spoke an agitated rise in his tone. “Well what’s a Strickener and what’s a Sunderer?”
Izzy came to hold her head with one hand in wake of the question. Arkash continued to chew away at the carcass while he anticipated an answer, eager above the vague accumulation of annoyance in his gaze. “Let me start at the beginning,” She said at last, then drew one of the crystals she’d collected from her bag. “This is a Sunderscrap, it’s like the crystalized form of a Mark of Control, harvested from a mage with the Sunderstrike,” she spoke as she drew that same dagger-like implement from before. “You just stab a mage through the heart with this, and they’ll be crushed into a Sunderscrap…. Sometimes a few if you’re lucky.”
Arkash nodded in response to relay that he followed, then forced the last of that cadaver into his mouth, chewed through the bones like chalk, then swallowed the slurry without pause. The girl continued her explanation as Arkash stood to fetch another corpse, which he crudely dragged without care.
“…Sunderscraps can be used to Stricken objects with their power, which is to say, the power of mages…” She further explained.
Arkash’s eyes widened, if only for a second. “Oh, really?” He asked with intrigue. “I bet you’d make a great Sunderscrap then, wouldn’t you?”
Her laugh was as dry as the dunes they’d scaled on the way to the gang’s headquarters, and was quickly followed by a swift “shut up.”
Arkash laughed in return, amused by her reaction as he had been last time. As he settled down, however, his smile withdrew as he focused his hungry eyes on the fresh corpse in his claws, then sat before he bit through the cadaver’s neck and ripped away a clump of jagged, fleshy vessels. Izzy curled her nose a little at the sight, then shook her head.
“…You know, if you change your mind about that gang offer, I’d happily teach you,” she said again.
Arkash smiled as he snapped his jaws around a shard of the clavicle, then tilted his head back for Gravity to aid him in swallowing. He breathed out, briefly satisfied as the last of the scrap vanished into the threshold of his bottomless body. “I really don’t know why you want to start a gang with someone who’s literally eating people right in front of you…” Arkash began as he licked the dripping mess from his lips, “But I’ve gotta get back to Boghadar… I promised someone there I’d be back… Last month. We’re into the Glade now, right?” he thought for a moment, recounting the days, then nodded to himself.
“Well… They’re not people anymore,” she said simply. “They’re just clumps of meat in the shape of people. It’s gross, and watching you eat makes me feel fat, but I don’t mind,” she explained.
Arkash laughed as he continued to tear through the torso of his once-fresh carcass.
“But it’s a shame… I think you’d make some great Relics, too. Just hold on to the thought of the prick that… Well, you know,” She spoke with a gesture to his chest.
Arkash watched her for a moment, mouth squeezed around a dripping clump of meat while he registered her words. With a brief exhale, he nodded and swallowed. “Maybe someday,” Arkash said with a brief smile. “…If our paths cross again. Where will you go now? I’ll keep an eye out for you,” he offered.
Izzy smiled a little, then looked to the stone building behind them. “Well, this shit’s gonna get stolen pretty soon. I can’t hold it myself or I’d just stay here… Plus, all my fucking… Ugh.”
Arkash tilted his head as he chewed through another sundered scrap of flesh. He maintained eye contact as he swallowed the piece. “…What?”
“There’s a full-ass Sundering lab in there that’s just gonna get snatched up. There’s not enough Wurmblood in these chariots to even get my ass to Rustbucket, let alone with all that weight on it.” The girl finished with a kick to the sand.
Arkash watched for a moment, frowned, then brightened his eyes. “Oh, you know what? There’s a… Hmmm.” He paused too late. Izzy’s features were already alight with wonder.
“WHAT?!” She called. “Come on, don’t just leave me hanging! You have to tell me!”
Arkash rolled his red eyes with the beginnings of a grin. “Fine, fine. I’ve already let a friend of mine into the space, but… I’m sure he won’t mind some company. You’ve fed me well, so it’s fair.” He grinned with a gesture of his head to the bodies where they were piled.
The girl widened her eyes, then furrowed her brow. “You mean you have a place?” She asked. “Out here, in the Badlands?”
“Sorta…” Arkash explained with a wobble of his dripping claws. “It’s an old underground complex of caves with a hidden entrance… It looks like someone lived there at some point, but all the wood is so old that it’s crumbled to splinters,” he shrugged at his own observation, then took another hefty bite out of the cooling cadaver. Once he’d swallowed, he resumed. “Some bugs in there too, but that’s fine by you, right?”
She did squint a little at the mention of bugs. “What sorts of bugs?” Came her next question.
“Mostly spiders… Though some of them had like pincers and barbed tails,” he recalled with a glance at his forehead.
“Oh!” The girl returned. “Scorpions…! That’s just what I wanted in my next home,” she spoke with an obvious air of sarcasm, which Arkash rose a brow at.
“I mean fine, if you’d rather go headlong into the wasteland, that’s no skin off my back,” Arkash said with a shrug, then bit off another mouthful of the corpse to chew.
The girl curled her features again in the peripheral of his vision, and he grinned inward. “No, I’m sorry. I do want it, it’s just…” She paused, conflicted. “I really don’t want to wake up one day with scorpions all over me, you know?”
Arkash laughed at that, mouth full of mortal wreckage before he shut his jaws as much as he could, and swallowed the clump of meat. “Yeah, me neither. But they taste good if you pluck the stinger first.”
Her features twisted with a look of horror and disgust, utterly perturbed at the suggestion.
The rathor loosed another how of laughter, gore spattered jaws waving as he leaned back. "I'm totally kidding!" He wasn't. "I'll take you there right after you get your stuff together. Go and get whatever you need and I'll get through these bodies much faster," he assured with a grin and a motion of his clawed hand to the victims of his commissioned services.
As Izzy got up with the beginnings of a smile on her features, Arkash watched her wander off back to the complex. Once she'd passed the threshold of the door, Arkash fixed his gaze on the copious gore and blood to spatter his clothes, then tried to leech from the blood there. He focused his mind's eye on the etheric potency of the lifeblood, as he had a thousand times before... And found nothing. there was no power for him to siphon, no ether to manipulate.
His power hadn't returned, which he'd somewhat expected. Was the power to fling hardened blood weapons just innate to the Cardinal? Had Arkash learned it so quickly because of his experience with the Mark of Control? It was plausible, but he didn't know for sure. Perhaps his power would return over time?
After stuffing the last of his most recent steal into his mouth, he got up and fetched another corpse to feed on.
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