Ever the proud pirate, Captain chafed at being told what to do by Fenmyre. Especially the way she acted like she could just assign him a task. For what, for free? Not if he didn't get a share of the booty she wouldn't!

"Sure," he replied to Fenmyre (a pirate has no strong feelings about lying if necessary), but his attention was focused on Edric, whose head suddenly swung up with an intense focus. Staring at a particular piece of Oily black rock. It was at this moment that Captain knew: the boar had found the treasure, and this was his one chance to intercept it. Captain charged without hesitation, knocking the boar aside and slamming his horns into the chunk, breaking it apart. Only to pause in confusion. Where was the treasure?

Edric whirled around, snarling furiously. This stupid buffalo would not steal this opportunity from him! Since the brute had already done the work of getting it down into bite-sized chunks for him, it was Edric's turn to steal the glory. He lunged forward and grabbed a piece of the Black Spire in his mouth, snuffling it down without hesitation.

YOU GOT TO THE TREASURE BY EATING THE ROCK!? Well if that was the case Captain was hardly going to let Edric claim all of it for himself! Before the boar had even swallowed, Captain snatched up his own chunk and gulped it down whole!

For Captain, it... burned.

Like eating a smoldering coal, like plunging a hot poker down his throat, into his guts; it burned. It was the sort of immediate, urgent pain that left one writhing or screaming, or both, and the flame-like sensation rippled up through his veins, along his skin, filling his eyes with blinding haze, like smoke. He smelled burning where there really was none: but visually he was untouched, unharmed, visibly.

Within, his magic was being torn apart, his stone hissing and crackling, almost melting, black veins popping up but threatening to consume it. The corruption was tearing him apart, killing him, killing him-

...and then his gemstone rose up around him, to save him.

Captain would sleep. Captain would dream, and he would dream of violence, and entropy, and merciless change. Of soldiers and Valkhounds, warriors and the dead, of fire and smoke and hunting and death. All the while while being remade in its image.

He would awaken Corrupted, his old magic and element lost to him.

---

Edric... felt the rush of power. An exhilaration. A thrill of shivering strength. It burned, yes. It sat smoldering in his gut, and likely he'd vomit it up in a few moments, but for now it simply reinforced his magic. It was as he was. It was part of him. The urge to violence intensified; the Profaned aspect of him manifested a tangle of tentacles, one and then another, and these fell away as more rose and then collapsed. He was left standing in a thin pool of oil as they decomposed, likely shivering with the rush of it, but unharmed.

Captain should post in Update Me to have his element changed to Corrupted and his elemental spells removed (these may not be sold). He will awaken in two weeks' time fully changed, after dreaming of a feast of violent delights.

Note: the same results may not always apply to future attempts by other characters...

@Edric @Captain

He'd swallowed it so fast that his brain caught up with the sensation of burning after it was already halfway down his gullet. Then it hit him, the searing tearing through his throat and chest from the inside out. Captain bellowed in agony, falling to the ground hard and hooves kicking wildly at air. It was tearing him apart. It was melting him from the inside. He screamed until his screams felt like they were going to rip his throat apart and then he kept screaming even as his voice got hoarser and his kicks weaker. And then... nothing.

exit to chrysalis

Edric started forward furiously towards Captain just as the heady rush of power surged through him. HOW DARE HE CLAIM THIS FROM EDRIC!? In that moment he thought that he could easily stomp this buffalo several times his size into the ground--and maybe he really could've.

He didn't need to, though, as the Voices who had chosen EDRIC and NOT CAPTAIN REJECTED the unworthy buffalo and sent him crashing to the ground and writhing in invisible agony! "--HAHAHAHAHA!" Edric laughed in pure glee after a moment of shock at the sight. "AHAHAHAHA! That! is what you get for trying to claim a gift you are UNWORTHY of! AHAHAHAHA!"

Breathing heavily, Edric looked at his own body and became aware that there were tentacles rising out of him and more falling at his feet. The ones still on his body were withering too, now, dripping into Oil that pooled on the ground. He must have somehow missed them bursting from his body in the rush of it all. He staggered a little, nausea that he had mistaken for excitement roiling, and suddenly convulsed as he threw the chunk of Black Spire right back up into the puddle of Oil and tentacle bits. "Ohhhh..." he breathed, reeling from everything that had happened in the past ten or so seconds. Unable to resist the allure of consuming more of the Corruption but recoiling from the acid taste of vomit that now covered the Spire piece, he snuffled at the puddle of Oil instead and took some of it in his mouth. It was disgusting, but in a good way.

He spun around to face Fenmyre. "YOU! he exclaimed in delight, then realized he didn't know what its name was. "... You were RIGHT. He HAD chosen me! HAHA! Did you see that--! That unworthy brute just got knocked right back into his chrysalis! After he tried to steal MY gift!"


+2 (oil consumption), 5 total
@Fenmyre

I'm sure everything that just happened was very horrible and upsetting to watch, for anything that had eyes. But Fenmyre didn't, and while it'd done an admirable job of working around its blindness it'd hit a brick wall here - he could've simply listened and done a kindness, as so often Gembound did.

But no, she'd asked for help from a selfish prick who was now, by the sounds of it, trapped within a chrysalis. The creature next to him was vomiting and squelching and leaking, but was otherwise alive.

The humour of it was beginning to fade. "I did not see that." She turned to leave Edric with the Spire, wandering down another tunnel. "Congratulations, regardless."

And in the echo of her absence, a thought flitted lazily through Edric's head. Eat more.

exit

@Edric (vis)

Fenmyre's lack of a reaction disappointed Edric, but it was minor compared to the thrill that ran in his corrupted blood now. Especially as the Voices whispered in his mind once more: Eat more.

His stomach was filled with his own tentacles' Oil and still roiling from the power of the Spire piece he'd consumed, but Edric took this command and committed it to heart. Eat. Consume. Devour. The Voices had told him so, and who was he to disobey? He would return and do it again, day after day, until the world returned to Oil.


exit