This thread is backdated to be roughly two weeks after Cry Havoc (Februrary 6th).

Note: Prolonged exposure to the Black Spire nets you Corruption Points!
Keep this in mind before you join :']

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

gore

(mentioned, past)An arm jerked free of the collapsing Oilstone, the undead's hooked fingers tearing straight upward. Stringy hair clung fast to rippling, scarred sinew—some patches far whiter than others. Crimson horns broke the surface next, a mucous membrane clinging to them and near-instantly evaporating. Oil sloshed and spilled around shuddering limbs. The dank, humid air of Draco, in a twist of irony, was freezing-cold against her too-hot skin.

Draconua heaved her first breaths, and proceeded to drag herself out from the hole.

This tomb was meant to be empty; whether or not destruction and inadvertent Chaos had spurred that on. Every manner of slavering beast was not meant to fester within the confines of a long-outgrown shell—and, yet, here the Sleepless Chaos was, spurred by an unfamiliar survivor's instinct to return to her place of birth; like a salmon swimming back upstream to complete its life cycle. The blizzard had been her winding river, and the sheer force of will had been her caudal and pectoral fins. Rotten wings had carried Draconua through the journey's start, and she had hauled herself through the rest—

—only to fall into a pitch-black slumber.

She surfaced, now, into the stifling wetness of Draco, sneering and grimacing. Pinholed eyes turned from side to side. A barbed tongue swiped over Oilstained teeth, and she scanned the overly saturated, overly contrasted cavern; irregular, disorderly, free of nether influence.

The valkhound hoisted herself higher, talons grasping—with an astonishing amount of shakiness—at the shelf of rock she presently balanced upon (and, to no one's surprise, it was a remnant of her first awakening in these Caves.)

Caves. These Caves. His influence reigned strong in here, yet the rest was merely foxholes for the fools that enabled Order, that denied Chaos. Nefarious, stinging Order, crystalline and armed with chitinous shears. (Draconua ignored the phantom spasm of intestines carved from their place, flesh peeling apart—) Lips peeled back in a grimace, and she tucked her chin against her sopping-wet neck. Coarse hairs clung and tangled themselves around her chin, around gnarled horns.

These Caves, which she could not purge if a single worm was enough to destroy a body of hers—Draconua twisted to stare at the Black Spire, uttering a brief prayer; a meager offering in exchange for this second chance.

Order's vile head, though, would make up for it.

Yet, a single worm, dead as it was now, had been enough, and those fools had bore witness to her failure—

Ugly head reared, the monster contorted herself to face away from the Spire. After a moment's hesitation, she turned back to it. Vanquish Order, cast it all to the wind and let even that burn it: her (self-determined) reason for existence; her modus operandi; the l'appel du vide she would so gladly heed. And yet—

"Creator," came the murmur, simultaneously ashamed and shameless to admit this: "I lack the might to fully cull Order." That much was obvious. "No modicum of it will remain in my presence for as long as I remain here, and yet—! Every single thing here is incapable of doing what is so, so necessary to do what I cannot."

A sneer, and Draconua was unwittingly marching in the direction of Pegasus. Stopping to course-correct, the valkhound circled the Spire instead, a dozen eyes—flinty and near predatory—fixed on the gleaming of iridescent black stone and the forked symbol chiseled into its surface; her own insignia being but an abridged version. Two-point-Oh.

Draconua watched, and she spoke uncaring of who was around to hear it, "… if you will it, Creator, I would obliterate every corner of these caves for you."

The Spire shifted, growling in its movements, constantly changing and unstable. The Valkhound might have been speaking to it, but it could not hear her; however, her sentiment did not fall to an empty chamber. Draco itself was alive. Its walls and floor breathed, it was a warm and moist space, like the gut of a creature—like a womb.

The entire room contracted when she uttered the word Order.

She stared at the Spire, but it did not stare back.

"… if you will it, Creator, I would obliterate every corner of these caves for you."

The room released, like letting go of a held breath, and the Black Spire halted in a shape not unlike a pointed grin; the sound of its collective mass stopping was sharp, like the exact moment glass shatters, but lacking the clattering of pieces that would usually follow.

The room contracted again, the air beginning to swirl around the area of the Spire, collecting near Draconua in a dense, suffocating cloud, following her if she continued to circle.

"IF I WILL IT..." crawled a voice, not necessarily from the Spire, but from the entire area around her.

The cloud began to pop and spark with bright black-purple embers and neon green lightning—despite the altered light of the room, as if the area she were in became a pocket of true color, its edges tearing with the ripped seams of void. A clawed hand reached into the space, as large as Draconua herself, and gripped her in its jagged, dirty talons.

"ERUPT."

It squeezed—and Draconua popped. In all the same second, a collection of things happened: the cloud around her burst with black-purple flame, streaks of neon green lightning spit from its dense center, and the sound was loud. A shattering, crackling explosion of crushed bones, roaring flame, screaming lighting...

"IF IT IS MIGHT YOU WANT, MAKE IT."

Within the eruption, Draconua burned in the hand of Chaos, her flesh bubbling and peeling to reveal tattered muscle and shattered bone.

"YOU ARE CHAOS."

As Oilstone began to speckle her body, chrysalis reforming through the carnage—it was not instant, for her tolerance to Chaos was high—the puff of void began to dissipate and the claw disappeared. The Black Spire slowly began to move again, but it had not forgotten that which it curated for so long:

"THE SLEEPLESS CHAOS."

Draconua has discovered the spell Unstable Eruption and has reverted back into her chrysalis.

Unstable Eruption:
High Intensity Manipulation. A densely-packed plume of searing hot ash and purple embers erupts from around the user, spitting with bursts of black-purple flame or neon green lightning. The temperature within the plume is hot enough to disrupt most cold spells, melt ice, and severely burn those caught within, including the user. It is an extremely unstable spell and cannot be controlled. Any oil on or around the user is ignited, likely causing secondary burns and creates pools of black-purple fire in oily areas around them.

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

gore

No, she did not continue to circle as a swarm of crows befell her—no, no, Draconua froze, skull lifting with little but rapt attention. The sanguine of her face-plate faced the Black Spire directly, though her dozen or so eyes followed the looming presence as its malevolence swirled above.

Her body twisted to face the voice emerging to meet her; though, it was futile, with how it rang from every little facet of this room. It was directionless, inescapable, and powerful—

—and it grasped for her.

Chaotic euphoria, churning and simmering in her eager gut, drowned out any natural desire to squirm away from a hold. Oilstained teeth bared wide in a mad grin, and she stretched her limbs out only to settle deeper into this embrace, to sink her teeth into the phantom sensation so it wouldn't leave her. Her tail thump!ed heavily against the ground, the picture of a pleased cat who'd caught a mouse.

"ERUPT," commanded the voice of power, and she had no choice but to obey.

Sinuous flesh cleaved apart once more, though it was now that nerve ends flash-fried in a spray of Oily blood. Bones cracked, splintered, found themselves pushing through rapidly withering and emulsifying musculature. A wheezing laugh escaped her lungs, cut off only by their joining the rest of her body in its self-destruction.

The bare remains of her claws grappled for a grip on the living stone. Hardly any tendons remained to hold the shattered joints in place, to even allow the valkhound the ability to simply get up, walk away from all this. Oilstone punctured flesh the same as bone; it was simultaneously worse than even the agony tearing through her body and the most soothing sensation to crawl over her form, yet.

Her last breathing moments were spent in voiceless hysterics: spasms of laughter unable to be carried out by corrupted-black lungs; tongue lolling out of a fractured jaw; sobs wreaking havoc on her gullet; and, of course, Oil weeping from the whole of her form—but in the greatest quantity from pitch-black eyeholes. Draconua managed to expose her stomach to the air in a show of flailing limbs and thrashing, confused nerve endings, before even her own tolerance ran out.

"IF IT IS MIGHT YOU WANT, MAKE IT."

"YOU ARE CHAOS."

"THE SLEEPLESS CHAOS."

EXIT DRACONUA