ORIGIN

White flakes scoured the air, a bitter gust raising. The ice worm thrashed, mandibles crushing at Wyvern's flanks--skidding--falling away as the hybrid twisted free from its grip. And then...

The earth erupted.

Had no one told Draconua whose side she was on-? Here, in this cold and crystalline bastion of Order, a tainted lie within the nest of Chaos, she reigned: a force of Chaos herself, a tendril of its entropy thrust in to corrupt and destroy Order's fragile, rigid glass. There were falling bodies... flailing wings. There was screaming.

The ground burst upward in jagged ledges. It cracked open in black fissures. The hiss of His magic coiled up in chaotic whispers, corrupting those close to the source, Touching them with His promises.

The rock crushed at the Ice Worm's flanks, the sound of cracking bone and tearing flesh barely audible beneath the wind's roar. It thrashed: flailed. It turned, grasping again for Wyvern, for its escaped prey, driven by Mother's pure direction--and then Zhusha dove.

A little figure--alone in its attack--but a determined and fiery one. The crane was not fuelled by Chaos--what was it that drove him stabbing beak first into the ice worm's hide..? A rip, a tear, a gouge driven in between the plated skin, and a single line of blood trailing down its flank-... Distracted, the worm turned, gnashing jaws for the crane in flight, and missing: and, thus thwarted, it gave up this ambush as lost. The worm fell away, dropping back into the hole: and with it fell Sora, and Giggle.

Corrupted earth smashed in behind them. They fell with snow, and ice, and tumbling rocks. They fell bouncing against worm spines and tunnel walls. The worm surged away, plowing and grinding--a fleeing, wounded beast--into the earth, and left them falling further...

The rest, scrabbling at the edges, were saved here and there. Individual acts of heroism: what lives could be saved, were. Madhukar, dragged to swift safety by Twisted--emotions and history and action all coiling together into a historical event that only they would ever share. Reign, lifted free and set aside, and safe: Pride would not lose another Seven member, not this time. And Nemo's wind, blasting them all free, farther from the hole, even as its edges crumbled, likely saving several lives.

They were left in the swirling cold, the empty plains around them obscured by curtains of white flakes, the hole gaping corrupt in their center... but those who remained were safe, for now. The last few rocks, the last plummeting plumes of snow, cascaded into its yawning depths.

But Giggle and Sora were now missing. Wyvern was greatly wounded. And among those who had come too close, Chaos whispered its urges.

_____________________

Giggle and Sora tumbled down. Far, farther, the smooth-chewed walls formed by the ice worm's rapid tunneling breaking some of their fall with painful impacts. Perhaps the fall would kill them, or perhaps return them to their chrysalis, the crash of bones and organs on the rock below proving too much for their bodies to handle. If they were "lucky," they would land awake: the very faint pinpoint of light left overhead casting only the faintest gleam over the narrower tunnel they'd fallen into. A tunnel that smelled dead, cold, like old bones. A tunnel in which a deer-like creature reared back with wide eyes, frozen permanent and pure glassy white with terror in its face, a horrific statue left behind by an unknown maker.

_____________________

Wyvern is now seriously wounded.

Giggle and Sora may roll to make any attempt to avoid being chrysalized by their long plummet into the tunnel (or their players may choose death or chrysalis by choice). This is a thirty-five foot fall, but as the tunnel is only six feet wide, they may make an attempt to use their bodies (or magic, if preferred) to try to slow themselves.

The rest of the group may push on toward the mountains, or perhaps find a way to descend down the ice worm's vertical shaft gnawed through the earth--or they might choose to turn back, and give Ursa up, for now. They may also choose to send scouts, or take any other in character action they so choose. The ice worm's shaft is smooth-walled, thirty-five feet deep and approximately six feet wide.

Those who choose to spend this round using Perception rolls of any kind will be able to sense the injured ice worm moving rapidly away underground, toward the glacier tunnels.

Sora, Madhukar, Twisted, Nidhogg, Wyvern, Reign and Giggle all take one point of Corruption and, if not previously already corrupted, are now Touched.

The next GM post will be posted on March 8th.