A kind world would have noted the innocence of this one. Its youth and oblivious nature, its naivety to the damage its actions might cause.

Reality took no note.

___________

It began as a burning, as the young cub shuffled. Perhaps it would give her pause, this sudden searing down her throat, in her gullet. The magicka of the Spire shard flared, flashing through Monstroid's Phenakite, so that it lit as though with fire. At this point, the cub would be immobilized by agony, the magicka thrashing through her body, dissembling it, consuming it, reabsorbing her young, weak creation back into itself...

...And then the black lines, oily and slick, in the cracks beneath the Spire flared. A foul mist rose, like rancid smoke, billowing upward; the activation of magic seemed to spark something counter in these cracks. Another magic lifted through the poor young panda in a silent roar, overwhelming, the sensation of chaos and destruction ripping through her: all-consuming, until there was nothing else.

The magics twisted, twining, battling over the little Panda's body. In places, the burning magic of the Spire was torn away, replaced, by the black entropy of what lay beneath. It was like being ignited, dismembered, dismantled, and then a grinding as the dark stone itself began to move. Slick black, the Spire's light flaring angrily over its lambent gleams of oily green and gory pink as it slithered upward: and what yet remained of the Panda's disintegrating body was clasped in this. As the last of her consciousness began to fade into this horrific pain, she would feel a final crack of the gemstone at her head as it split: and then the oily rock caught her in its grasp, holding her fast, tightening-... Fusing.

Monstroid's chrysalis reclaimed her, and she would waken again, but changed. Her gemstone would forever remained cracked: and through it would remain slender threads of black, like fingers that had reached for the very core of what she was. When Monstroid woke, she would find herself Touched by Corruption: visions of violence would torment the youngster, whispers of the force that had grasped her before her full annihilation, promises of chaos, urges to consume.

The fingerless black hand of stone that had grasped her would fall away when she woke, though its base would remain: a rupture of darkness protruding up beneath the Spire, a marring bruise beneath its brilliant light.

Monstroid will chrysalise for two weeks. When she awakens, she will be Touched, with five points of Corruption. Her gemstone will remain cracked, but threaded through with very slender lines of black oilstone.