The woman takes in a sharp breath as she stares at the murky looking hemisphere protruding out of the ground like a malignant tumor. “Yeah, that’s going to cause trouble. Queen’s tits...this is a mess.”“That bad?” The young man with her asked.She answers by applying a none too gentle smack to the back of his head.“Ow! Alright, it’s bad. It’s just mud town though, technically we could just set the charges...”She shakes her head. “Could destabilize the entire mountain. Besides, it’s a bad time anyway.” She spits on the dirt floor, then sighs and pulls out a handkerchief and wipes up the little damp spot. “You know the situation.” She waves her hand in the air, wincing. “The queen doesn’t want disruption. We’ll just cover it up and hope it isn’t too aggressive. Deal with it later.”“Isn’t that...”“Yeah. Yeah it is. Not our call. Come on rook, we’ll come back later.”They leave. You remain, a murky gray pimple in a dimly lit room, surrounded by dirt. The room grows dark, then light again. The cloudy gray tumor that is you flickers with a dim light. You can do something. Just once. What can you do?> Capture. Reach out and take something into yourself. There is not much here. Dirt. You could take it though.> Create. Use things you've taken to Create.You don't seem to have anything to Create with.> Contemplate. Wait. Think.Perhaps it's better to not be hasty.
>>6066148>Contemplate. Wait. Think.We think we don't have anything, but maybe we do? Time to achieve enlightenment
>>6066182You decide, and it is done. You realize that you are not one for indecision or pondering. The first thought in your mind simply happens. Perhaps you will eventually be capable of doing more at once? Your existence seems bereft of guidance or instruction. But today you choose to think and ponder and wait. Perhaps this is a path to power, to consider the energies of the universe, to circulate them within you, absorbing ambient power to one day challenge the heav-Wait, no, that's preposterous. You already contain great power. The woman spoke of your death bringing down mountains. If this is what your death brings, then you must contain greater power already. What you need is Control.Control Increased to 2Before you can ponder further there is a distant angry noise, then something goes splat. Bits of the thing that go splat land in the dimly lit room of dirt. Eggshells, rotting bread, a dirty piece of cloth. Trash?> Capture. Reach out and take something into yourself. What?Eggshells, moldy bread, rags. Humble building blocks to be sure. And dirt of course. Always dirt.> Create. Use things you've taken to Create.Can one create something from nothing?> Contemplate. Wait. Think.Even inaction has its uses. Probably.
>>6066240>Capture. Reach out and take something into yourself. What?Eggshells and moldy bread: symbol of birth, symbol of sustenance, and extant life. We shall create a homunculus (or something)
>>6066243You reach out, and a hundred black threads form and crawl along the floor. You will Capture this rotting bread and these broken egg shells. Life comes from eggs. It is sustained by bread. It returns to rot. These are simple things, but you can use them. The items are covered in your threads, then vanish. Your power is gone, for the moment. The world goes dark, then comes back again.A thump. A gasp. A whimper. Something drags itself into your little room. Someone. Pain, exhaustion, fear, all things you can feel from him. He is filthy with sweat and dirt caked into simple clothes. Voices echo into your little room, angry and out of breath. “Where the fuck did he go?”“Down this thing?”“Dumbass, look in it. Do you see him?”“Uhh, no? Maybe there's a little cave or something?”There is a long silence. “A little cave? You fucking idiot. Come on, you check that alley and I'll circle around the other way.”Footsteps fade. The man in your little room leans against the walls of your dimly lit little room of dirt.> Capture. Reach out and take something into yourself. The rag is gone. Where did it go? All that remains is dirt and this man, who feels... large. Far larger than you can take.> Create. Use things you've taken to Create.A bit of egg and a bit of bread. > Contemplate. Wait. Think.Perhaps it would be better to simply examine the situation. Not everything needs a reaction.
>>6066257>Contemplate. Wait. Think.I'd like to observe the man for a moment before creating. Perhaps we'll gain some insights about life
>>6066262You watch and ponder the man. Ragged clothes, and ragged hair and ragged breaths. Slowly his fear subsides and he stands, face twisting in pain. He looks around and you look at him. He stares at the grey hemisphere that is you, and cautiously approaches, reaching out with a finger before thinking better of it. He limps around you, eyes darting every which way. “Piss.” He finally says unhappily, and hobbles as far as he can from you, pressing himself against the wall, beating his head against the dirt in a slow steady rhythm. “Piss. Piss. Piss.”He seems unhappy.Control Increased to 3> Capture. Reach out and take something into yourself. What?Dirt dirt dirt dirt. So much dirt.> Create. Use things you've taken to Create.Moldy bread and eggshells. Curious ingredients.> Contemplate. Wait. Think.What will the man do next you wonder?
>>6066547> Create. Use things you've taken to Create.Let's give the gentleman a show
>>6066547>Create. Use things you've taken to Create.
>>6066556You exert your Control on the things you've taken and weave them together. It is surprisingly difficult to weave eggshell and rotten bread together, you suspect your Creation is quite shoddy craftsmanship. Perhaps each additional component makes for a more difficult creation? Nonetheless a loom of shadows twists and ties together things that should not and creates.It is a sad little thing, your Rotting Bread Soldier. Scarce a foot tall and with armor of brittle shells and a peculiar mushroom sprouting from its head. It has barely existed before it turns toward the man and with a muffled snarl (oh dear, you forgot his mouth) it lunges toward him. The resulting tussle is sadly not an epic for the ages. The Bread Soldier sprouts stubby little eggshell claws and lacerates the man's leg quite badly though, before the man quite brutally stomps your soldier to pieces, leaving a sad pile of bread and eggshells.Your vision dims and fades, and returns again. The man is gone, the sad heap is gone. But you can sense the things within you, a bit of eggshell, more bread than before, the blue and red mushroom. You have made something from nothing. Fascinating. It appears that things that come from you will return to you.Control Increased to 4> Capture. Reach out and take something into yourself. What?It occurs that by taking dirt you might make a tunnel going somewhere.> Create. Use things you've taken to Create.A mushroom, more moldy bread, and a bit of egg. More than you had before.> Command. Give orders. Impose your will.Wasn't... something here?> Contemplate. Wait. Think.You do not seem very beloved.
>>6066612>Capture. Reach out and take dirt into yourselfLets make that tunnel
>>6066612>Capture. Reach out and take dirt into yourselfLet’s make some clay men.
>>6066701>>6066674A thousand black threads reach out from you, scraping and taking the dirt that forms your little home. When it is done you have a tunnel, a tiny thing a man might crawl through if he must. At the end of the tunnel you discover a wall of packed stone. What is behind it you wonder?> Capture. Reach out and take something into yourself. What?Stones. Stones seem promising. But what lay beyond the stones? And what could you find in other directions in the dirt? > Create. Use things you've taken to Create.A mushroom, more moldy bread, and a bit of egg. And now dirt. A sizable heap of dirt in fact.> Command. Give orders. Impose your will.You have forgotten something...> Contemplate. Wait. Think.You do not seem very beloved.
>>6067413> Command. Give orders. Impose your will.The hurt punk WILL obey.
>>6067453You exert your will and issue a Command! Oh, wait, what command were you going to issue? Who were you going to issue it to? The man is gone, your little bread knight broken and reabsorbed. You... perhaps have not thought this through. Perhaps you can Command the man even though he is neither formed of your power nor even present? You reach out, you strain, tenuous fibers of darkness form, reaching out far beyond your vision and view. They flicker and sputter before your Control is finally spent and they vanish. Did they do something? You have no way to tell.Control Increased to 5Darkness, light. You awake and ponder your next move.> Capture. Reach out and take something into yourself. What?Stones. Stones seem promising. But what lay beyond the stones? And what could you find in other directions in the dirt? > Create. Use things you've taken to Create.A mushroom, more moldy bread, and a bit of egg. And now dirt. A sizable heap of dirt in fact.> Command. Give orders. Impose your will. On who? To what end?Something to order around might be required.> Contemplate. Wait. Think.You do not seem very beloved.
>>6067479>Contemplate. Wait. Think.
>>6067479>> Contemplate. Wait. Think.
>>6067747>>6067695Set the charges. What did that mean exactly? And that man, he has looked at you with fear, hesitation. Yet...he also wanted to touch you. You muse and ponder on this. Your short lived creation was quite aggressive, if ineffective. Is that the natural state of things, people wanting to touch you, your creations wanting to murder them? But why would someone want to touch you? Why would you want to murder them for it?A shadow appears in your entrance. The shadow resolves into an oddly indistinct figure. People are not supposed to be cloaked and blurred shadows are they? It stalks forward without a word, pausing ever so briefly when it sees you, then moves in close. Then it pushes its arm deep into you.This is a thoroughly unpleasant experience. You were under the impression your form was quite solid, perhaps smooth and glossy, but solid. It is not. The stranger shoves their arm around, digging inside of you, every motion a horrid cocktail of nausea and pain. Their fingers trail over your dirt, your egg shells and bread. Then they grab the mushroom and yank[li], pulling the mushroom out of you. Thief! Plundering fiend! Someone, without even the decency of a face, has come into your hole in the dirt and taken from you the one unique thing you've created.“Ugh, it's always mushrooms isn't it?” She mutters.Control Increased to 6> Capture. Reach out and take something into yourself. What?Give it back! That is mine!> Create. Use things you've taken to Create.Something to crush with! > Command. Give orders. Impose your will. On who? To what end?Halt! Cease thief! > Contemplate. Wait. Think.Seethe! Plot!
>>6068184> Command. Give orders. Impose your will. On who? To what end?Taking something without giving anything in return is rude
>>6068184>>6068189 +1
>>6068490>>6068189Black strands reach out of you, tying and gripping, poking and intruding, threading their way into the mind of the thief, resonating with the concept of Taking something without giving anything in return is rude She sways for a moment, muttering to herself, then cackles. “Oh, you're a smart one aren’t you? Most of you would have jumped me with a useless monster, but you want in my head don’t you?” She sighs. “Ugh, fine if it’ll clear the compulsion, what do I have...” She pats across her body. “Ah shit, not that, not that...eh, take the glove.” She stripes off a glove, revealing a pale hand. She drops it directly onto you and it disappears into you, your grey surface rippling like water. “There. Compulsion cleared. You’ve got a glove.” Her voice rises to a song. “I’ll be back for it though”Control Increased to 7> Capture. Reach out and take something into yourself. What?Hmm. Take the stone and see what’s on the other side? Gather up more dirt?> Create. Use things you've taken to Create.A hulking dirt golem? Something with this glove?> Command. Give orders. Impose your will. On who? To what end?No one is around at the moment.> Contemplate. Wait. Think. For what? About what?You don’t have much to think about right now.
>>6069033
>>6069033> Create. Use things you've taken to Create.A dirt golem
>>6069136You call up your dirt and threads of shadow and begin weaving them together. Bit by bit, piece by piece. You've grown far stronger than before, strong enough to even weave the dirt around you into your creation alongside the dirt from within you. The dirt golem is about the size of a human, of rough packed dirt, and roughly of the same form. The angular openings to darkness that form its eyes examine its own body for a moment, each limb being held up in turn. With a moment of focus you realize you can see from its eyes as easily as you do your own grey body. > Capture. Reach out and take something into yourself. What?Take the stone and see what’s on the other side? Or dig in other directions? Down? > Create. Use things you've taken to Create.Your materials seem scarce, but there's always dirt. Perhaps a gaggle of grasping earthen hands?> Command. Give orders. Impose your will. On who? To what end?You have a minion and no one has killed it yet! Send him out to explore! Or can he dig for you? > Contemplate. Wait. Think. For what? About what?
>>6069593>Capture. Reach out and take something into yourself. What?Dig down
Rolled 17 (1d100)
>>6070078Down. If you scurry beneath the earth then no one can take anything from you. You take the dirt beneath you, your form dropping down into the hole, until with a clunk you fall onto some slimy looking square stones. There is a tremble, a wiggle, and the stones give way. You fall and land with a squelch in something wet and sticky.You feel very exposed, out of your encasement in dirt. High above, your dirt golem, you shall name him Clod, peers down. Clod looks concerned. A thin rivlet of foul water oozes around you. Going to change up the format a bit, this is slower and more stilted than I care for, especially given the speed at which I can update.> Weave ooze and mud together into a pack of slimes and grasping hands and send them out to explore> Have Clod jump down and carve yourself a nook in the side of the sewer.> Take material beneath you and sink deep and hidden into the muck.
>>6071286>Weave ooze and mud together into a pack of slimes and grasping hands and send them out to explore
>>6071286> Weave ooze and mud together into a pack of slimes and grasping hands and send them out to explore
>>6071836>>6071540You take slime and mud and weave new creations from it. Creeping oozes and grasping hands of mud are spun into existence, a dozen in total created over the course of a day. You send them out and watch through them as they slither and burble along. The sewer that you've found yourself in stretches along for some time, twisting and branching. Most of the tunnels terminate in heaps of rubble and trash, but one ends in sunlight and the sounds of people. Your oozes creep up to the edge and find a stinking cistern surrounded by the backs of shabby looking huts, a few human children are tossing rocks into the filthy water below. Back at the stone egg that forms your body you hear voices from above, through the hole you carved and fell down through.“If we’re lucky rook, it’s a slow one. Or an obsessive. I’ve seen them just sit there and make cubes of dirt for a decade or more before they get frisky. Or they never move past the basics...gods fuck the queen it moved.” You hear the frustrated noise, halfway between sigh and scream. “Alright, occupy the minion for me, I’m going to look down the hole it made.”“Occupy!?”“It can't be that strong yet, grade 2 at best. You’ll be fine.”7 on d7You watch from Clod’s eyes as he lunges across the room at the two interlopers, the first two people to ever see you originally in fact. The young man moves to intercept you, tugging a sword free from his hip, but Clod moves with surprising speed for a heap of animated dirt, and a fist of packed earth slams into the young human’s face and staggers him backward. Blood flows freely down his face from a broken nose.“Gah, suck a muddy dick!”His partner snorts. “I wondered if I’d ever see your upbringing.”10,3 on 2d10His face twists into a scowl. “High grade 1.”“See? It’s just dirt, you can dispatch it.”The young man certainly didn’t look like much, but one flash of a sword later and your connection to Clod was severed. Twice you have been invaded, and twice creatures you have made have been destroyed. This is displeasing. Admittedly your creatures seem inherently hostile, which certainly isn’t helping their survival, even now the slimes you sent out are itching to ooze out and bite the ankles of the children around the cistern, though they seem hesitant to stray beyond the sewer.
>>6071843Down the hole a tooth falls, followed by an echoing. “Shit! Sorry boss.” It feels proper to take the tooth, a spoil of war, into yourself.Your control has increased to 8> Dig in and fortify. Recreate Clod, and more golems like him, and set them to making it more difficult to get to you. > Experiment. You made more bread, entirely by accident. Can you do it again with this tooth? Or this glove? How do different materials affect the creation?> Find more stuff. Capture the rats in this sewer, dig in the muck, send out oozes by night to scavenge. > Write in
>>6071845>Find more stuff. Capture the rats in this sewer, dig in the muck, send out oozes by night to scavenge.
>>6071845> Experiment. You made more bread, entirely by accident. Can you do it again with this tooth? Or this glove? How do different materials affect the creation?Though everything sounds good. I just don't really have a plan for if they come to get us soon.
>>6072672we will need to make more material eventually now we may need to move deeper in the sewers make a vessel to transport us
Dude, you should make an Incremental game out of this concept, in the likes of a dark room and crank.
Sorry for the radio silence, life is just applying maximum pressure and I haven't had any time.
>>6075940No problemo QM, you're based for keeping up the quest with such a lukewarm reception. Waiting for the update patiently. Consider posting an announcement in the /qtg/ when you update to possibly draw in more players.
>>6072265>>6072672>>6072825You need knowledge, you need tools, you need defenses. But there's no reason you have to focus on just one. Black threads launch out, connect with your slimes and mud hands. You send them out to scavenge and collect from the slums around the sewers, hopefully they'll find something useful. Next, you weave the wayward tooth and bits of mud together, pulling, stretching, making something new. Soon enough an unsettling crooked grin is smiling at you. Dig you command, and it sets to work, gnawing at the mud and bits of stone, then spitting them directly into your surface where they vanish with a ripple.The bright outside becomes dark, then becomes bright again. Your grinning slime, Smiley you will call him, is joined by a reformed Clod, slightly bigger, slightly stronger, who carefully shifts you down into the hole formed by Smiley. A little safer, a little more hidden. Your scavengers return, some of them anyway. The outside world is not a safe place apparently. The handful of survivors drag in a motley collection of scraps, including a couple rodent corpses, fragments of wood, a loaf of fresh if muddy bread. A meager offering to be sure, but your slimes and mud hands are hardly powerful creations. You set Clod to work building crude barriers of mud and dirt, as Smiley puts his crude teeth to work digging a new tunnel deeper into the earth. You need something more though, perhaps an entire legion of Clods, or something simpler like collapsing a tunnel on anyone who approaches you.
>>6077197A rope drops into your field of vision. Ah, you seem to have forgotten the hole you dropped into the sewers from. That may need correcting. A few minutes later a man, old, a bit overweight, too well dressed for this sort of place, drops into your space and peers down at your form, slowly being covered covered by sewage ooze. A moment later the thief woman arrives as well, in her blurred black clothes. You note she has replaced her glove.“Eurgh. Can it be moved to a better place?” His nose wrinkles. All across the sewers your creations jerk and stop what they were doing, pulled toward you. “We'll need specialized equipment. And a prepared location.” The woman looked around warily. “We've probably set off a rage event getting this close.”The man’s eyes stare at you, a smile resting on his face, a hunger barely restrained. “How long until the royals get their shit together and move it somewhere they can shatter it?”You issue the command to halt, straining against the surprisingly strong will of your creations. They stumble and linger restlessly, all staring in the direction of you, twitching and vibrating, Smiley grinding its teeth, Clod clenching its crude fists. This conversation seems important.A knife dances between the woman's fingers, though her posture spoke of lazy boredom. “With the succession concerns? We probably have a few months, unless our little baby here gets fussy.” She leans over the edge and speaks in a singing voice. “But you won't get fussy will you? You'll be a good ittle little baby-”“Vanessa, please.”“Ahem. Sorry boss. We'll need anti-magic cables, mundane lifting equipment, probably some delvers. As long as we move fast we can pull it out of here, get it to a Gray Zone, and then put the screws to it for whatever we want.”Gray Zone? Anti-magic cables? Screws? You bristle.> Capture their rope. Force them to face your creations.> Let them leave. For now.
>>6074941Yeah, I could see that being a lot of fun.
>>6077204>Let them leave. For now.
>>6077695You restrain yourself. Someone is planning to abduct you and ‘put the screws to you’. Someone else is planning on abducting you and shattering you. But they don’t think much of you. Don’t consider you a threat. What you do isn’t even a consideration in their plans. So you wait. You watch.Control Increased to 9The man peers over the edge at you again, fishing something from his pocket. “Hah, Vanessa tells me you’re just an infant. See if you can be more useful than most infants and make more of these.” Three copper coins drop down into your depths and are added to your contents.Vanessa makes a noise, a sort of strangled cough. “Boss, you really shouldn’t-”“That’s its purpose isn’t it?” He cuts her off. “ I give it things, it makes more of them for me.” The boss stares at you, desire in his eyes. “Copper today, then more, when it knows its place. We’re leaving.”The pair are quiet as they leave. Then you consider the situation and something wells up in you, filling you with something new. Something...> Hot and vicious, snarling and snapping. Wrath.> Icy and raw, numbing and aching. Dread.> Nauseous and toxic, twisting and rotting. Jealousy.> Prickly and itchy, twitching and jumping. Anxiety.
>>6077872> Hot and vicious, snarling and snapping. Wrath.I think all of these sound good but wrath seems most fitting since I personally am pissed at them underestimating us. They WILL succumb to our minions. We WILL laugh at their corpses, once haughty in their assumptions of our weakness.
>>6077872>Hot and vicious, snarling and snapping. Wrath.
>>6078650>>6078596It wells up inside of you, like a red hot chains that tighten around you, threatening to drag you down, but you seize the chains, pull them into yourself, capture them. This is power, something rare and precious and painful. You have only the vaguest ideas of what you are, what you are capable of, but one thing is certain. They have underestimated you. Glowing chains manifest around Clod, wrapping his body, scorching mud and dirt into blackened ceramic. Heal rolls off the golem as it flexes its fingers, glowing interior contrasting against the blackened outside. This is a true threat, not mere cannon fodder. As if to illustrate your point Clod points a hand forward and a concussive blast of flame and force bursts out, shattering bits of stone along the sewer walls. Your anger ebbs away, for the moment, settling into a low simmer deep within you. There is much to be done. Your enemies plot against you and your defenses are lacking, this hole leading directly to you is the first issue of concern.> Fill the hole above you with dirt and stone, taking and manifesting as required. No hole, no problem.> Move to a new position within the sewers, and leave behind a sizable deadfall trap> Create some sort of beast to lurk in the hole and cut the ropes, perhaps a copper mandibled beetle.> Write in
>>6079086>Move to a new position within the sewers, and leave behind a sizable deadfall trap
>>6079086> Move to a new position within the sewers, and leave behind a sizable deadfall trap> Create some sort of beast to lurk in the hole and cut the ropes, perhaps a copper mandibled beetle.Combine for enhanced efficiency. Beetle cuts the rope, they fall into the trap.
>>6079332ohhhh the mandibles could be a coin split down the middle with a perfectly fitting halves a coin clipping.
>>6079455I'll have to give that a whirl too.
>>6079455>>6079332>>6079140The rope is your first concern. Invaders simply rappelling into your territory without challenge is unacceptable. You spin the copper coins and some nearby beatles together and produce three Coin Cutter Beatles. They buzz up into the shaft and put their copper mandibles to work digging little ambush burrows for themselves. Excellent. Your next bit of work is more intensive unfortunately. Clod hefts you out of your nook and carries you further back into the depths of the sewers, settling you gently against a heap of rubble that blocks the tunnel. Then he sets to work, aided by your lesser creations, digging out and widening a deadfall beneath the shaft. You manifest the few scraps of wood you have into spikes and a few rotting planks of wood, enough for the illusion of safety.It's a good start, but you need more.> Experiment with destroying and recreating Smiley to create more teeth, and more Smiling Slimes.> Combine rot and rat corpses and try to produce something nasty and vicious> You made a mushroom once. Maybe you can do it again and get something dangerous.
Where do you relocate to?> Blue Circle> Green Triangle> Yellow Square
>>6080817>Experiment with destroying and recreating Smiley to create more teeth, and more Smiling Slimes.>>6080827> Green Triangle
>>6081068support also teeth is a good material as durable organic glass
FUCK I am sorry QM I forgot to reply, I hope you forgive me.>>6080817> You made a mushroom once. Maybe you can do it again and get something dangerous.poisonous shrooms that explode into spores when you fall into them>>6080827> Green Triangle
>>6082714Lol, no worries. Been choked on the busy anyway.
>>6082714>>6082241>>6081068You consider Smiley. The sentient ball of rot with a toothy smile turns towards your presence, grinning its usual macabre grin. Then you Cut Smiley, reducing him to a sad pile of ooze and teeth. Then you take the abundant rot all around you and spin it again into more grinning slimes, a total of five. You study them for a moment, but they seem relatively unconcerned by the violent death of their parent. Your mind drifts back to the mushroom you created once. What was it, a bit of moldy bread and eggshell? The eggshell had not seemed particularly important, but the mold of the bread. Could you cut apart the mold and the bread? You call up the bread, a blue fuzz covering it, and focus your attention for a moment, willing the concepts apart.Your Control has increased to 10There is a flicker of red light, and you suddenly have stale bread, and a clump of blue mold. That could be useful. You spin together mud and rot and the spores, and little clumps of blue mushrooms lined with red pop up from the ground, bobbing in the mild breeze from the outside. They didn’t seem particularly dangerous though. You scrounge around in your Contents, a black glove, a rat corpse, a loaf of fresh bread, bugs and water and dirt and a single remaining ember of Wrath. That should do the trick.The mushrooms quiver and jerk, then beneath the skin a network of veins spreads, the blue color shifting to violet and the caps bulging. Your other creations keep their distance.“C’mon! C’mon! I swear I saw it go this way with a loaf of bread. Straight into the sewers.”A pair of humans step into the sewers. Talking. Young, male, large but not fully grown you think.“A hand. Made of dirt.”“A mud hand! Classic monster. I'm telling you it's a dead give away. There's one in there. A young one we could tame.”One young male stares at the other for a moment. “You're fucking stupid.”Their bickering continues as they blunder forward and you consider your options, even as your creations collectively growl and start toward the intruders.> Drive them off without killing them, revealing as little as you can. > Lure them in and murder them.> Attempt to capture them> Write in
>>6083139>Attempt to capture them
>>6083139> Attempt to capture themIt's risky but worth an attempt.
>>6083363>>6083193“Ho! Stop!” One of the males thrusts out an arm and blocks the other. “What are those?”The second male groans. “You’ve never seen a mushroom before? Taymen, I know you’re a little...”Taymen folds his arms. “A little what? Informed? Knowledgeable? Trained? Spit it out Lucy.”“It’s Lucian you dimwitted ass!”“Alright Lucy, tell me my character flaws. Give me your womanly perspective.”“Oh fuck you! This isn’t a cursed cave! They’re normal mushrooms! Look!” Lucian marches over to your patch of wrathshrooms and stomps down. 5 on 1d10. Burns on 5+The bulbous head of the shroom pops, a red haze rushing out. Then each mushroom the haze touches also pops, red haze filling the tunnel, rushing out, swallowing up Lucian in an instant. He staggers back, screaming and shouting, desperately beating his body against the wall of the sewer, a faint smell of sulfur filling the air. Taymen rushes to him and shoves his friend down into the mud. A desperate panicking flail in the mud later Lucian is whimpering and panting. “Oh fuck it hurts! Fuck fuck fuck FUCK!” The last curse echoes through the sewers and you feel a little of that fury seep into you. Delicious. You turn back to your invaders, feeble as they are.“I did try to-”“Shut the fuck up!” Lucian whimpers as he lifts up his arm. Between patches of mud his skin is ruby red, covered in blisters and boils. “Fine! Fucking fine! It’s cursed! Mud hands and death traps and probably a fucking princess too! Aghhh.” He whimpers in place. “We should get out of here.” He turns and stares at the naked white stalks dotting the sewer path. “That’s the front door. That’s our warning to fuck off.”You tense as Taymen frowns, then reach out subtly with your power, black tendrils flickering into his mind. A previous invader had called it a compulsion. This whelp already wanted to invade you for unknown reasons, you just needed to push a little harder on that desire, in fact magnifying what’s already there seems quite easy.The youth frown deepens and he shakes his head. “No, I’ll keep going. That’s probably the best thing it had, they can’t do stuff like that whenever they want. It’s probably just mud hands from here.”Lucian groans and struggles to his feet. “Fine. You fucking idiot. Someone has to tell you when to run.”They, carefully, trudge past the spent wrathshrooms and make it to your first intersection, gawking down each dimly lit tunnel. Your creations hold for the moment at your command, though there is a strain, you won’t be able to hold them forever. Perhaps you can find a better way to manage them after this.> Leave the invaders path to chance> Plant a compulsion to go North, toward the pitfall trap.> Plant a compulsion to go West, trapping them in a dead end.> Plant a compulsion to go East, toward you.
>>6083434>Plant a compulsion to go West, trapping them in a dead end.
>>6083434> Plant a compulsion to go East, toward you.Since we want to capture them, we need them to go towards us, no?
>>6083434Changing my vote >>6083920 to >>6084136
>>6085261>>6084136The occasional splash of water and squish of something best left unknown is only occasionally interrupted by the pained wheeze of Lucian. “This thing better be full of gold.”“It's pretty young, they usually only accumulate gold from people dying in them.”The two paused in the intersection and Lucian sighed. “I'm going to be seventeen copper coins in this thing's treasury aren't I?”“Nah, we'll be fine. Which way to the vault you think?”Black fibers descended on the youths like puppet strings, gently threading the idea into them. Left, right, just not straight. You weren't sure what you wanted them for, but broken legs and punctured lungs certainly wouldn't help. Lucian stared down the path ahead. “Straight’s too obvious isn't it?”“Yeah, it's probably down one of these paths. Let's check the left one first.” A few minutes of trudging later they're approaching the stone egg that is you. Taymen peers forward. “What's glowing up there?” He stares, unknowingly at the still form of Clod, waiting patiently.> 2,2 on 2d10 for the boys> 7 on 1d10 for Mud Hand SwarmThey never see the mud hands rising up. Two each seize the boys by the ankles, toppling them to the ground, then more rush forward, filthy fingers tightening around throats, jagged stone nails clawing and scraping. The boys flail and shout, desperately fighting in the mud, panicking as mud oozes into their throats, over their eyes, grabbing at their arms. A few mud hands are destroyed by flailing, but the fight is rapidly going out of the boys.6 for mud 7,1 for boysTaymen gets a knife free, and starts slashing blindly, even as the mud hands on his friend tighten their grips, choking him into a soft darkness. The last man standing hacks up mud from his lungs and kneels frantically next to his friend.“Luce! Lucian! Wake up! Wake up wake up wake...”In the dank depths of the sewer a glowing red face is approaching. The boy gives his fallen comrade one last glance and runs. He makes it halfway before he spots a crooked smile from the corner of his eyes.> 2,3One smiling slime latches onto his arm, the other his leg. He screams and flails, ribbons of blood coming off him as he shakes the slimes off, then keeps running, leaving two more smiling slimes behind.
>>6086502> 5Hope fills his eyes when he sees the sunlight trickling in. Then your last smiling slime lunges from the spent wrathshrooms. Jagged teeth grab his ankle and jerk him down into the mud. His knife clatters out of reach and he reaches desperately for it, nails digging into the dirt, then lunges, dragging the slime attached to his leg. His fingers close around it and he...throws it? You stare in confusion as it vanishes beyond entrance.Exhaustion and blood loss soon drag Taymen into darkness. Then your creatures drag both boys to you. Pits are formed, then filled, sealing both boys in mud cocoons. Now, what to do with your prisoners? > Compel them to tell you things. (What sort of things?)> Change them. Twist their flesh, or twist their mind. A servant? An attack dog? An unwitting puppet? Given time you suspect there are many possibilities waiting for you.> Write in(Sorry for no picture)
>>6086504>Compel them to tell you things?>Who were these people studying you?>What did they mean by taming you?
>>6086504> Compel them to tell you things. (What sort of things?)>Ask them what they and their people know of your natureFor the rest, supporting >>6086820
>>6086820>>6087141Black threads roll off of you like a freshly hatched swarm of snakes and plunge into the boys, worming their way into their defenseless minds. Information, that’s what you want from them. Answers. Wiggle enough threads deep enough and you can push and shove on their mind, compel actions, or punish failures. Force them awake. Your authority, your control, it forces the thought into Taymen’s head.What is taming?The boy jerks in his prison, a whimper escaping. “Oh god. It’s talking to me.”Lucian’s head hangs silently.“Luce! Luce! We’ve got to get out of here. We-” You twist the screws in his mind and he screams. And screams. What is taming?Taymen gags and chokes, and for a moment you are worried he’s bitten his own tongue off, then he voice starts. Low, bitter.“You heard that, huh? It’s...well you’re a cursed vault, right? They say the old empire alchemists made you, but some people say you’re leftover world seeds-” You subtly start pushing pain into his mind. His voice speeds up, stumbling over itself. “Ah, ah, anyway, if you can find one young enough, really young, definitely younger than you, you can tame them. Bring them treats, form a relationship. They’re uh...usually a bit dumb. Like an animal. Not that you’re an animal! But uh, yeah. And you can make things right? Like the old song, one in the vault, two in the vault, whoops we were caught, three in the vault, four in the vault...” His voice trailed off.
>>6088750Others came. Who? You force an image into his head, of your other visitors, their words, their actions. He thrashes and whimpers, head dropping as he groans. This method of conversation is crude to be sure. “God, that was dad. What was he...Uhm. Fuck, is that Mr. Edward? Uhm, uhm...” Blood is trickling down his nose. “It hurts, it hurts.” You feel his panic as he tries to figure out something, anything. You start raising the pain again. “Ok! Ok! It was dad! That guy by himself, who was hurt? That was dad. The people who came down the rope? That was...dad’s boss? Mr. Edward. I...don’t really understand what’s going on there. Dad works in a warehouse, I don’t know who that lady is who was with him. Maybe his secretary? That doesn’t...” He groans. Blood is tripping from his ears and one eye as well. “The other lady, I think she’s the Queen’s Curse Watcher. God, they knew. They fucking knew!”Wrath wafts from the boy as he thrashes in the dirt, blood stained face jerking up, tears mixing with the blood. His voice hardens. “It’s her job to scry for powerful magic in the kingdom. When you came here she probably knew right away. And she’s just been letting it be. Everyone is out there, and you’re in here, festering and getting stronger, and she’s having tea with the queen and just letting it happen.” His head falls, blood and tears dripping into the dirt.> Offer him revenge. Make him something greater.> Kill him. Consume the body.> Release him. You have no further need for him.> Write in.
>>6088752>Offer him revenge. Make him something greater.
>>6088752> Offer him revenge. Make him something greater.CORRUPT
>>6088752Guys, wrath is just the start. Wrath can destroy us, or make of us more than we are. Wrath can be a wild beast, or righteous fury. We're NOT stupid, we're just weak.We need more information, about the world, about the powers in play. Moreover, we need leverage to keep us safe from this Mr. Edward. This boy's that leverage. We let his friend go, but keep him here. He's our insurance against us being moved against our will.>Release him, but don't let him leave.Also, OP? I love dungeon core quests and stories, thank you for making this one!
>>6088752>Release him, but don't let him leave.>say to him "others scary, hostile they hunt, they want, they steal are you different?"
>>6093013>>6092909>>6089565>>6089265Revenge.He feels the intent, the meaning. Power, at the price submitting, becoming an extension of your will. Wrath rolls off him, but something holds him back. He stares at this friend.“He won't talk, I'll...convince him this was just a bad dream. A hallucination from the mushrooms.”Ah. A trade. One life for another. You accept the terms. The black cords in his mind burrow deeper, then burst into flame, fueled by the boy's own rage. Against you, against the crown, against his family, the world. You ignite it all, purify it, form it into a seed and plant it deep in his heart. It takes some time before his throat runs too ragged to scream anymore, a thin trail of smoke coming from it. ---The boys stagger away, Taymen supporting his friend. You watch them go. He belongs to you now. You see what he sees, hears what he hears. It takes the slightest effort to manifest a connection, to read his thoughts.Need to think of a good excuse for mom...Do not forget your obligationsHe flinches and nods. You feel the mixture of emotions, frustration and desperation, but all of it sits over a bed of hot coals, the burning desire to make someone pay for everything wrong in his life. For now he will maintain the facade, until you have a need for him. Once he returns his friend you issue your first orders.> Fetch tools and weapons. You have many hands, but they are crude and simple> Information. You have enemies, how can you destroy them?> Materials. Each thing you acquire is something new you can use to defend yourself.Sorry about the slow pace, life, as usual, hates QMs
>>6093160Don't worry about the pace, OP. My own quest just tipped off the board and I expect my other one to run as slowly. I know life can get in the way hard and even when you have time, pushing yourself to post can feel like trying to move a mountain.As for our new 'friend' here...>Information. You have enemies, how can you destroy them?Not just about our enemies and the world, but information about him. Who is he, what is important to him, what are his ambitions and dreams, what does he fear, how does he feel about us? We've planted a burning seed within him and whether we truly care or not (which I think we should), that fire will destroy him if it rages unchecked. A dead thrall is of... While not NO use, certainly LESS use than a living one. By knowing him better, by building emotions of more than rage, we make him stronger and more useful. On a cynical level, we get more ways to control him too.On a more humanist note, Taymen is our only connection, the only friendly-ish being with intelligence that we know of. By learning of and from him, we strengthen ourselves with new experiences as well, in more ways than greater control and resources. Our first method of interaction is indeed violence, but it needn't remain so, or remain our ONLY method of dealing with intruders, but all that requires getting to know what makes humans tick a bit.
>>6093160>Information. You have enemies, how can you destroy them?
>>6093160>Information. You have enemies, how can you destroy them?we groom him like he explained they do to our kind
>>6093551Next group of dungeon delvers are gonna have their armor emblazoned with the letters F.B.I. aren't they?
>>6093633To be clear, I use the word boy a lot, but he's somewhere in the 16-18 range.
