ORIGIN

It had occurred to them at this point that they really weren't doing everything they could with the dyes they had. Yeah, sure, they were painting murals of funny things all over the place, but their chat with Sora had really made them realize the potential. They'd seen cool dyes before - they'd made the tree bark one with Elspet before! But it was occurring to them now that they could just. Make their own.

They were leaned back against a rock, playing with a bottle of green dye, swirling it around in front of them when a sudden, beautiful idea occurred to them. Delight glazed bright in their eyes and they immediately hopped to their feet, stashing the bottle into their bag. Oh, this was a good idea.

They immediately took off into Polaris, sending magicka into their senses as they began to look around, eyes flicking here and there, watching out for a glimmer of green of the perfect shade. They found some other gemstones, some pretty boring smoky colored ones, a red one...ah, there! Green! Deli immediately stooped down and scooped up the green gem, holding it up triumphantly.

They opened one of the small pockets in their bag and slipped the green gem inside, pausing for a moment as they considered what they were going to do next. A green gem would work...maybe a black gem? No, not good enough. They needed something that would really make this foul. And that's when it came to them that they could just use literal rot. Perfect.

Deli immediately fell into a crouch, still finding it awkward after all these cycles, but they hadn't really bothered to come up with a better way to do their hunting. Still, they were stealthy enough, however silly they looked doing it. Carefully, they crept forward over the ground on all fours, still on alert with their heightened senses until they heard the faint scratching of a mouse. Pinpointing the location, they got into position and lunged forward. They swiftly grabbed the mouth and, with a firm squeeze, snapped its neck.

They immediately dropped the rodent's limp body on the ground and sat themselves on the ground, ready to wait out how long it would take for the mouse to start melting. Quite literally. Pulling out their lump of graphite, they flopped onto their stomach and began to sketch right on the ground.

They weren't sitting there for very long, about 20 minutes of drawing went by before the mouse was almost all oil. Deli glanced at it and, suddenly it was like they were back there, in the dark hole, the whispering voices in their ears. As they got out a small vial to pick up the oil, they had a sudden urge to get on their hands and knees and lap it right off the ground. Eyes widened, smile grew larger, and they leaned down, ever so carefully scooping up as much oil as they could without touching it.

Once they'd gotten as much as they could, they sat down again and plucked the green gem from their bag. Pulling out the small diamond they'd acquired some time ago, they set the gemstone on the ground and began to carefully crush it with the diamond.

After a few minutes they were rewarded with a fine gemstones powder that they carefully scooped up and poured into the vial with the oil. Corking it good, they began to shake the mixture until it had turned a pretty gross shade of green. They smiled. Perfect!

Now, they just had the finishing touch. Uncorking the vial again, they reached in with a finger to touch the dye and tried to press some magic into the color, but the amount they sent forward wasn't quite enough to do anything.

Deli tried again, touching the dye with a finger and focusing on the spell, pushing magic forward, as if they were going to erupt a puff of foul fungal magic but infusing it with the dye instead. And, to his delight, it worked. There wasn't a sudden cloud of fungal dander in the air, but a disgusting smell began to rise from the dye. Deli smiled and quickly pulled out his finger, corking the top of the dye before their eyes started watering.

With their new, disgustingly foul dye complete, Deli rushed off towards the nearest water source, dipping their finger in the stream to get off the dye before it stuck. While he was there, he pulled out another bottle and filled it with water - a good on the go bottle, in case they needed it.

With that done, they took some time to think about the spells they knew. They wanted to get creative with some of the dyes they could create. They didn't have any overly mystical spells, just brutal underhanded tricks. An idea popped into their mind - how about create something that looked like blood?

They looked down at their hand. They could probably use real blood for that...but no, not good enough. They'd tried it before and blood dried to a pretty nasty color. They wanted one that always looked like fresh blood.

They began searching around Polaris again, flipping over rocks, looking in crevices, until they found the first ingredient they were looking for. A red gemstone, nicely colored. Maybe a little bit too red, but they could definitely work with this.

They began the same process as before, setting the stone on the ground and taking out their diamond again, crushing the gemstone until it was nothing but a fine red powder. Pulling out an empty bottle they carefully poured in the dust until it settled on the bottom. Now for the unpleasant part.

Holding the bottle in their dominant right hand they lifted their left arm, deciding that they were going to get blood from their wrist, rather then their hand. They didn't want to risk permanently damaging any of their fingers. Taking a deep, steadying breath, they brought their writs up to their mouth and bit down.

They tried not to do it too hard, but they still wanted a good amount of blood in the vial. The wound they made was fairly shadow, but it was bleeding a good amount. They pulled back and quickly lifted it over the bottle, letting some of their blood drip down into the glass, only pulling it away once there was about the same amount of blood as gemstone shards. The immediately started licking at the wound, cleaning up the blood that was already matting their fur before pressing their wrist hard against their thigh to try and stop the bleeding.

As Deli waited for their wrist to stop bleeding, they carefully corked the bottle with one hand, vigorously shaking it as they'd done with the other one. After a few moments, they judged the mixture to be combined enough. They carefully uncorked it again and, maneuvering around with one hand, set the bottle on the ground. They dipped a finger in, as they did before, this time thinking of the magic to control others - their blood, specifically. They felt the blood contained in the mixture and sunk their magicka into the dye.

The change wasn't immediately obvious, but they felt it take one a strange, sticky texture. It really looked like blood, didn't it?

Pulling out their finger, they licked the dye away and corked their second new dye, smiling as they held it up to inspect it.

They waited some time between the creation of the blood dye, still waiting for their wrist to stop bleeding, closing their eyes for a moment to take a quick nap. When they were a little rested, and a quick observation of their arm showed that they were no longer bleeding heavily, they got to their feet, adjusting their satchel and setting off.

They already had an idea in mind for the next one. A few glances around the place, looking between rocks, and they managed to find themselves a nice, saturated purple gemstone. They eyed it for a moment, wondering if it would work, but then shrugged. It would be fine.

Stashing the crystal into their bag, Deli continued, this time trying to find some good areas where nests or dens might be found. Little caves and ledges, crevices in the rocks, the sparse bush here or there, until at last they found a small scattering of green feathers that they quickly snatched up. They observed the feathers for a moment, smiling happily before settling themselves down, ready to make another dye.

Deli pulled out another empty vial from their bag, as well as the bottle of water, the diamond, and a roughly carved bowl. Setting the feathers in the mortar, they began to carefully crush them with the diamond, ripping them up and breaking them apart until they were starting to turn into a very very thick paste. A quick splash of water thinned it enough that they could get it into the bottle.

They set the mortar to the side and picked up the purple gemstone, setting it on the floor, and repeating the process from before, smashing it with the diamond until it was nothing but a fine powder. Carefully scooping it up, they dropped that into the bottle too, corking the top and shaking up the mixture vigorously.

They didn't shake it as long as the others - they wanted them incorporated but not fully blended. Once they were satisfied, they uncorked the bottle and stuck in a finger. They closed their eyes and focused, thinking about the spell that brought venom to their mouth and willed it into the paint.

They knew it worked when they opened their eyes and looked down. The colors had taken on a bright, toxic color and were no longer in danger of mixing, swirling together quite dangerously. With a smile, they pulled out their finger and corked the bottle. They glanced at their now paint-covered finger...probably not a good idea to lick that off.