Chapter Text
It appears that Amvinn is too busy talking with ghosts to bother hosting the narrative at this current junction. Quite unfortunate, since ghosts do, in fact, make the best company, but there are far more pressing plot-relevant events taking place at the moment to bother with phantoms. We have to keep this story moving somehow, or else Jason and friends are never getting out of this place. Speaking of which, it just so happens that you’re about to be Jason, as he and Amvinn are still the only conscious characters in this group. So while Amvinn is busy talking to ghosts in the past, you’ll be busy being Jason in the future! Exactly one minute in the future, while you make all your preparations.
You weren’t sure what to do at first. You rushed into the cave about to wake everyone, but listening to your better judgment, you stopped yourself before you could. They’ve all been so high-strung these past few days while you were busy getting your coma on, barely even getting a wink themselves. It doesn’t feel right taking away their only chance at a solid amount of sleep for who knows how long.
Instead of waking them all, you’ve elected to leave a note for them in your stead. Using the other side of the paper the Seer sent you, you scribble in ‘Gone to get Seer. Don’t tell Mia, she’ll worry.’ and… huh. Who do you leave this for? You would give it to Sara, but her and Mia are pretty tight. There’s a good chance she would crack if pressured. But leaving it for Esspin would be kind of weird. You don’t really know her too well, certainly not enough to leave notes for her in the middle of the night, especially seeing as you’d have to reach into that pod thing she’s in to leave it for her. You aren’t sure of the trollien social protocol surrounding pods, but you’re at least somewhat sure entering one is an invasion of privacy on some level, and would probably come off as creepy if you did so. You can’t leave it for Gretel or that other consort for obvious reasons. Oh, wait, you’ll just leave it with Amvinn!
You poke your head out of the cave to ask him to hang on to the note for you and see…
“Look! I don’t care what you say about it! I don’t appreciate you practically sucking on my noisefolds like that! You don’t see me going around, sticking my flavormuscle into your ghostly orifices, please keep yours out of mine. …Oh, will you stop bringing those up! They were too big and clunky and made door frames impossible to travel through, they didn’t even fit in my ditch-hive! It was only logical to do away with them, that’s all it was… They were a nuisance to keep around and I got rid of them of my own volition!”
Okay he’s screaming at the sky. Now might not be the best time to ask for a favor. Fuck it, you’ll just leave it for Esspin. Creepy or not.
You slink back into the cave and sort of poke your head into the slime filled sleeping bag she’s in. You’ll try to make it quick, no need to be loitering in a potentially intimate personal space. You cautiously tie the note around the end of one of Esspin’s huge horns, careful not to wake her. With her temper, you can only imagine how grouchy she might be if you were to wake her in the middle of a REM cycle, if Trolls even have those.
Extracting out of the goo-sack, you notice your upper torso got a light sliming while you were inside. The substance is weirdly warm, like a viscous blanket that soothes wherever it touches. Its odor is a little intoxicating… almost like you could… fall…… No! Can’t go slipping off into sleep now! You’ve got a Fate-Date with a certain Seer waiting for you! You wipe the slime off your shirt and sleeves and get on to the next preparation. Weapons!
You’re venturing into unknown territory, meeting this Seer. For all you know you could be walking directly into a trap. It’s probably for the best that you keep Bane of All Mountains at the ready at all times, but you don’t want to scare the Seer off if it’s just an introduction. You’ll keep your pickaxe slung over your back, then. As a sort of non-threatening assertion that you’re not playing games. Although, just one pick isn’t going to be enough to fend off a potential player-stacked strife. Maybe you should leave a Checkpoint in your team’s cave, just in case?
Checkpointing is a pretty cool power one of your future selves taught you about that you never really get to use all too often. It works like anchoring yourself to a specific point in your chronology with a metaphysical tether. Activating the checkpoint strums that tether like the string of an instrument, causing a recoil and rushing you back to the anchored point, sending you barreling back into the time and location you set the Checkpoint in, sort of like teleporting… but with Time. The maneuver places you back into your earlier self’s perspective, as to not cause any splintering events with future/past self shenanigans. Quick, clean, no doomed timelines, no dead Jasons. A pretty handy tool if you think about it. It’s a little limited in it’s use, however, since you can only have two or three at a time, and they tend to expire after a few hours if you don’t focus on them, but they do make for one hell of a trap door exit on short notice.
Placing your palms together, you evoke forth a torrent of temporal energy, summoning a large Gear Construct before you with a key-slot in the center of it. You reach forward with your right hand and place your fingers up to your palm into the slot, turning it as if you were locking a door. As you retract your digits, a crimson red tether appears from the slot, slithering a length of itself out from the gear. You grab the thread and reach around, attaching it to your nape. As it takes hold and vanishes along with the gear construct, the Checkpoint is set. Nice! Thank god a future self taught you this ritual, you would’ve never figured out how to do this otherwise.
With the note for Esspin, your pickaxe, and the Checkpoint all set up, you think it’s just about time to get going. You make your way out of the cave, stopping at its entrance to get a lay of the land one last time before going off. It stopped raining. That’s weird, usually a Land’s weather is static, but that’s the last thing on your mind right now. Amvinn is arguing with a ghost still, it seems. That reminds you…
“…Greg. You in here?” You whisper into the cave towards Sara, where you assume the dead Mage’d be. “Hey man, look if anything goes wrong while I’m gone, have Amvinn message me and I’ll hurry back.” You pause for a moment, waiting in a vain half-expectation for some sort of indication that you’ve been heard, but the only thing filling the silence is Amvinn’s yelling in the distance. “Y-… yeah… okay, bye.”
Feeling a bit awkward at talking to thin air, you step out of the cave and inform Amvinn that you’re leaving, not that he seemed to notice. That’s fine, Esspin should have things covered in your absence.
Reaching the edge of the forest, you’re greeted by a sun-filled field brimming with optimism. Such a nice Land. After taking in the scenery, you retrieve your Hand-Held Supercomputer to get your bearings. Catalog #57 Bottom Left corner of section 19x3. Deploying into your hands is an absolute brick of a phone. While it may sound impressive, this slab of processing power hasn’t always been the most useful of items. Surprisingly enough there aren’t many uses for a mobile supercomputer that you can think of, but it’s coming in handy now with its neat little compass app. It looks like south is directly ahead from where you’re currently facing.
On a related note, it appears someone tried pestering you a few minutes ago. You navigate to your Pesterchum app and open the message, but much to your unimpressed remembrance, all you see is a bunch of ones and zeroes. Oh yeah, the supercomputer isn’t text-chat friendly and automatically translates any messages you receive into binary, including the chumhandle of whoever sent it to you. Like you said, not the most useful item. You’re pretty sure this thing is supposed to be hooked up to a display monitor of some sort to use properly since the phone’s user interface is incredibly clunky, relying of a scroll-wheel on the side of the device to navigate its small screen. Oh well, you’ll get to that message later, you have much more important fish to fry.
You take your first step out into the field. You haven’t been ambushed yet, or shot at, or impaled. You think if there was going to be a trap, it would be farther ahead than this, but you can never be too cautious. Jason, travers these fields of light already.
***
It’s been maybe a three hour’s walk between your hide-out and the Seer’s meet-up location, and any energy you might’ve saved up sleeping for as long as you did seems to have evaporated marching through all this tall grass. You’ve fallen maybe five times, tripping on the knotted up blades, and you swear that this stuff keeps trying to wrap around your legs. Not that it matters anymore, seeing as you’re already at your destination, with the nearest forest only a small ways away now. The plains are flat enough that you’ve been able to see the woods for a while now, but now that you’re through the thick of it, you’re finally- Fuck!
In an instance, your view of the forest is replaced with a face full of grass, as you trip and fall for the sixth time today. Great way to top off the journey, really sums up the experience in the Arena as a whole. Alright, get up and brush yourself off, no need to… whatthehell? You’re stuck. You push up harder, but something’s anchored to your neck. What is this?
You look yourself over and find a few particularly large blades of grass have wrapped themselves over your nape, hitching you to the ground. Reaching up to free yourself from the bindings, you find that your right hand has also been restrained by a series of grass blades wrapped around your wrist. Struggle as you may, these things only seem to tighten against your resistance. You’re starting to freak out right now.
Alright, calm down. You just got tangled up, and for some weird reason the grass here is acting like a finger trap, keeping you stuck for only as long as you struggle. Just hold still and they’ll loosen… is something crawling on you? Good fucking shit, it’s alive! The fucking grass is alive and it’s coiling around you!
In about the worst move you could ever make, you start floundering around like a spaz, only constricting the existing grass-bonds even more so than they already were. At this point, it’s almost impossible to move, and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe, with several large blades having worked their way around your torso. A shiver runs up your spine as the grass works its way across your body, slithering around you like a snake.
You choke as the blades around your throat tighten, causing your eyes to water, furthering your panic as your vision blurs through the tears. This isn’t good, pretty soon you’ll be completely overwhelmed. You have to calm down and use what little mobility you have left wisely. Wait, you’ve still got Bane of All Mountains strapped around your back. Thank god, you’re saved!
Using your least restricted hand to reach up for it, you grasp at the pickaxe but… it… just… won’t… REACH! Come on, if you could just force your arm up a few more inches… Dammit! You can’t budge it. You’re gonna end up popping your shoulder out of place doing that.
Without warning, a small gust of wind brushes against you, like something just ran past. With it, you hear a soft voice travel on the breeze “Still haven’t calmed your shit, huh, pinky?” In that instance, the grass wrapped around your wrist snaps and your hand is freed. Without hesitating, you grab hold of your pick. Funneling a fuck ton of temporal energy into your weapon, the exhaust vents on the sides of the pickaxe open, glowing red-hot with a burning heat. With every ounce of Mangrit you can muster, you slam Bane’s spike into the soil of the grassland.
On impact, the entire reservoir of energies housed within Bane of All Mountains is channeled into the ground, exploding the surrounding area with a thunderous -boom-. The grass entrapping you, and a fair bit of the earth beneath you, is eviscerated, leaving you in a sizable ditch in the ground. Bane whirls as it gradually goes back into a dormant state, and the exhaust vents slowly close back up. You scramble to your feet and look for whoever it was that cut your bindings, but no one is around.
“Hello?” You call out, not really expecting anyone to answer. Before anything else can happen, the large amount of dirt you kicked up into the air during your your slamsplosion comes falling back down onto you. “Gah! Fucking…!” You get ahold of your breathing and finally realize how exposed that attack of yours made you. Not wanting to be in this god forsaken field any longer, you crawl out of the ditch and full out sprint towards the forest's edge, making sure to take higher strides this time.
You don’t stop running until you realize you’re halfway to the center of the forest. Stopping to lean on a tree, you finally let yourself breathe. This is the right place, right? It fucking better be with the shit you just went through.
“s h e s n e a r j u s t a l i t t l e f u r t h e r” The ominous whispers… whisper. Looks like that’s a constant all around the Land. Makes sense for the Land of Plains and Whispers. Hopefully the man-eating-grass is only regional to this particular spot on the planet.
Up ahead, you spot a rock-mass with the mouth of a cave carved into it, similar in appearance to your own hide out. This must be it. You slowly approach the entrance, still overly cautious of the hypothetical ambush waiting for you. The coast looks relatively clear, and there’s nowhere else to go but in. So… this is it. Fuck, you are nervous.
As you stand at the stone threshold, something Sara said to you crosses your mind. That there’s a possibility Lexie could have entered the Arena from a splintered timeline separate from your own. You won’t lie, even the thought of seeing her again is more than enough to get your heart thumping into your throat. Before you can get too excited, you remember the note the Seer sent you. Amvinn said it had a troll quirk, whatever that means. Remembering this, the thumping in your chest slowly peters out and you get your head back into the game. There’s still a chance whoever it is you’re meeting here might not be completely on board with your plan, it’s your responsibility to convince them otherwise. Can’t be thinking about all that personal shit right now.
“Hello...?” You call seemingly to no one again as you enter the cave. God, it’s dark in here, you can barely see an inch in front of your face. “I-I got your note. I came alone, too. Like you asked.” There isn’t any answer. What’s the deal, did you get ditched or something? “H-hello? Shit… This is the randevu place, right?” Waiting for longer than you probably should, it dawns on you that you’ve been duped, walking out here to the middle of nowhere. You’re calling it here, time to head back.
Turning around to exit the cave, you sigh in defeat. However, before you can fully turn back to the exit, Bane of All Mountains is ripped from the sling on your back, replaced by the cold touch of metal pressed against the back of your head. You’re no expert, but you’re pretty sure that’s the barrel of a gun. Well… fuck.
***
Hey, would you look at that! A random Character-Change encounter, and just when things were getting interesting, too. How unfortunate. I’m sure we’ll get back to it soon enough. How about we see who you became in the meantime.
Coming into conciseness, you’re sightglobes slowly open, and you feel well rested and ready to take on the world! There’s a muffled shouting coming from outside the cave that catches your attention. Sounds pretty intense, too. Wiping the sopor from your face, you pop your head out of your recuperacoon looking to see what all the rumpus is about. Your two human friends, Mia and Sara, with their respected consort companions on their laps, seem to be fast asleep still, unabated by all of this noise. Amvinn, on the other hand, is nowhere to be found. It must be him outside, but who’s he hollering at? Jason, mayhaps? You should probably get out there in case they need an auspistice to ashen out this heated parlay. You’ve already filled one quadrant with a human, but two? How progressive.
Walking out of the cave determined to explore another intimate relationship involving a human, you find that there doesn’t appear to be any such human to form any such relationship with. In fact, there doesn’t appear to be any ashen quadrant relationships plump for the agglutinating out here at all. The only scene happening out here is that Amvinn guy howling all by his lonesome, Jason nowhere in sight. The Oliveblood is turned partially to the side from where you stand, so he hasn’t seemed to notice your presence yet.
“Well at least I’m still alive! Yeah, yeah I brought it there! See this!” He shouts before quite angrily puffing his chest inward and outward several times. “It’s called breathing, something privileged for only the living! You’ve probably forgotten all about it by now, seeing as you were literally the first pan-numbed douche to get himself killed! Honestly, it’s impressive how fast you were able to show everyone how inept you truly are. It’s like you were actually going for the record of least time spent being productive… Oh, oh here we go again! Horns this, horns that. What is your obsession with my fucking horns?”
“Goodness…” You mutter to yourself, taking a step closer to the little guy. Possibly deranged or not, this hellion is clearly in dire need of aid. Dire need of… guidance, perhaps? And you’re just the Troll to provide it.
“Plenty of Trolls get rid of their horns, just because it’s not deemed socially normal on your backwards half of the planet doesn’t mean- No I didn’t break them off by accident! What kind of moron do you take me for? Look!” Amvinn continues to yell as he flings his hood off, revealing two stumpy little horns just managing to poke out from the hair on the top of his head. “See! Precise cuts, done with purpose, not that you would know anything about purpose, would you, you layabout piece of-“ He stops suddenly. The shedding of his hood seems to have widened his peripheral vision enough for him to have seen you.
“Um… hello.” You say, realizing that you’ve been essential eavesdropping on him this entire time. Even if you were out in the open, he undoubtably hadn’t noticed you there.
“h-hey…” He mutters, his cheeks turning a dark mossy green as he averts his gaze from you.
“You, um… Are you doing well out here?” You ask, preparing a few different sermons you’ve had sloshing around in the back of your thinkpan for just this occasion. “I heard yelling from within the cave and I was unsure if trouble had arisen.” You doubt Amvinn would be very receptive towards one of your more relaxed speeches, but your more high profile style talks might come off as too preachy for his blood’s tastes. Maybe a more relatable, person-to-person conversations could prove effective?
“Sorry if I woke you. You can go back to sleep, I’ll keep it down.” He promptly informs you, like he’s trying to shoo you away as quickly as he can. Something feels off about him, but it’s hard to put your nub on it. He still refuses to look you in the oculum.
“Oh, thank you, but no, I’m well refreshed already. Nothing gets you rested quite like sopor, yes?”
“I guess. It gets you to sleep quick enough, but I don’t remember ever being well rested all too much whenever I woke up.” He says as he crosses his arms, still keeping his gaze off you.
“Remember? You don’t use your recuperacoon anymore?” You ask, stepping into his field of view, hoping he’ll look at you.
“I… forgot to bring it with me.” He admits, turning green once more.
“You did? Why didn’t you bring this up? Mine is more than spacious! I’d happily have made room for you.” You tell him, setting up a potential future late night sopor-filled sermon.
“I bet.” He mumbles with a grunt. “Highbloods always get the cream of the crop, don’t they…”
“Pardon?” You heard him mutter something about Highbloods, but not much else. “Apologies, friend, but I didn’t catch that last part. You said something?” He doesn’t answer, just looks at you with a lazy glare. “A-are you not feeling well?”
“Oh, I’m just fine.” He sarcastically jabs, looking away again. You have a sneaking suspicion that might not be true.
“Amvinn, please, if there’s anything you wish to tell me, I’d be more than happy to lend you an attentive noisecatcher.” You inform him, extending a salt-fruit branch. Rather than taking it, Amvinn evacuates his bellowsacs with a heavy sigh, like he’s grown confounded with your conversation.
“Do you even remember me? From back on Alternia?” He asks, refusing to look at you as he speaks.
“Alternia? I-… I knew you back then?” You don’t remember ever meeting Amvinn before the Arena, but your Hive was near a rather large forest on Alternia. Olive bloods tended to hug close to their hunting terrain, so perhaps he lived in a subgrub nearby? Seeing that you’re still in the dark, Amvinn retrieves something from his strife deck and quickly marches up to you with it.
“This look familiar to you?” He inquires, holding up a large, sharpened shiv-looking key for you to inspect. You suppose this is one of his lower tier armaments he used before Sgrub, but you don’t recognize anything about it. Regardless of recognition, something’s certainly got Amvinn's tuft in a ruffle. Flashing your weaponry is a very serious gesture, especially when it’s towards one’s own teammate.
“Uh, I-I’m sorry, friend, I don’t-“ You struggle to find a way to explain your lack of recollection without angering him further. As soon as he realizes you still haven’t the faintest clue what it is he’s talking about, he quickly drops the key down to your lower torso and lifts your shirt, exposing your abdominal fleshwindow. “H-hey! Stop that.” Ignoring your plea, he continues to poke at you with the sharpened point of the key artifact. You go to grab the prong he’s holding your shirt with, but as you do, you notice where he’s leveled the key. He’s positioned it against one of your scars.
Scars received in fights were a rather common occurrence for a Troll in a brood, mostly due to the high likelihood of a strife breaking out from territorial disputes, both with outsiders and chapter members alike. You especially bear a divine canvas of extensive war ornaments, having been terminally strife-prone in your youth, a disposition that ultimately got you the metaphorical nub-protector from the Following. Even someone less proficient or bellicose in combat than yourself would find themselves forming quite the formidable collection of battle scarage, especially in a Highblood exclusive chapter, where aggression levels were both expected and maintained to be as high as possible.
After the first few slashes and stabs you received in the brood, you stopped bothering to keep track of who painted what on your flesh-canvas, however Amvinn’s key blade matches your scar tissue down to the grove pattern. So you truly must have known him back then. Seeing your face brighten with realization, Amvinn goes and sits back down at his stump and flings the key into the ground, burying its blade in the dirt at his feet. He’s back to not making oculum contact with you again, glaring off at the open air of the forest. So that’s what this was all about…
“God, Amvinn I’m… I’m so sorry, but… Well geez! Why had you not said anything earlier?!” You exclaim, walking up to him and patting him on the back. “If I had known I had an old strife-buddy traveling with me all this time, we could’ve cracked some wicked elixir together! A- I don’t have any Faygo with me, unfortunately… b-but we could have done something together, yes?”
“Kalzah, what in fuck’s name are you talking about? We weren’t strife buddies, you dolt!” Amvinn snaps, shirking off the hand you’ve left fondly resting on his collarnub. “You and your friends hunted me down and tried turning me into paint! You killed my Lusus, you makeup wearing psychopath!” …Oh. You take a step back, as Amvinn looks about half a twitch away from making a lunge for your squawktunnel.
A long, painfully awkward silence passes between the two of you. You don’t think there’s ever been a point in your life where you’ve been at a loss for words, yet you can’t think of anything to say that might make this situation any less guttural. Even if you could, you doubt the unfortunate waif would wish to hear a weep out of you right now. You lightly run a prong against your side, tracing the scar Amvinn gifted you all those sweeps ago. You shutter as the memories start sloshing around in your thinkpan. It’s not a time you like to ponder upon, back in your Brood. For the most part, your Chapter in the Following tended not to concern themselves with the lower castes, but hunting down Lowbloods for hivemade paint supplies certainly wasn’t out of the ordinary. As a matter of fact, paint-poaching was only a fraction of what one could expect from your branch.
Looking closely at Amvinn, the recognition begins to set in from way back when. It’s easy to mistake him for someone else without his horns, but he’s unmistakably one of the handful of trolls who lived in proximity to your communal Hivespace back on Alternia. Ironically, most of the Brood respected his presence in the woods. He was bold enough to live near a Highblood Praisehive despite being the lowest hue in the region, which by all accounts meant that the boy was shithive maggots, and if there was anything that the Following respected, it was the cajones of the radically deranged. And so they left him alone for the most part. Boundaries were acknowledged and cordiality was established. However, one fateful day, the mural hall ran out of green paint, and it was only a matter of time before someone suggested to hunt down the local lowblood.
After that, you and a few other members went to collect the goods, only to be met with a significant backlash, with the Olive putting up more of a fight than any of you were expecting. He had incapacitated three of your ranks before getting overcome, and even with two of your strongest holding him down, he still managed to struggle out of their grasp. It was your first time going on such an expedition, and as such, the responsibility to cull the party’s prey fell to you as the initiate. The other’s held him down for you, expectantly waiting for you to deliver the blow.
You recall how something had felt off at the time. Of how you saw your Brothers and Sisters making merry of the hunt, prodding and taunting the Oliveblood you had cornered, treating him like a pet to be toyed with. You remember wanting to join in, a familial longing to partake with them in their joyousceese as you had done with all other merriments with the Brood, but when you saw the panic in your kill’s oculum, and how feverishly he tried to escape, clinging for life… you found it unexpectedly impossible to swing your club into his cranium. In that hesitation, he had managed to force his way out of the subjugative grasps on him.
He must have realized you were the one who was to cull him, for as soon as he broke free, he drove that same key-knife he’s got there into your acidtrack. After that, he took down two more of your strife team’s line-up before absconding deeper into the woods in a panic. His Lusus, on the other hand, had no idea of the scuffle taking place outside of its Hive. For as tenacious as Amvinn was, his Lusus was rather timid, especially for the amount of armor it had on its hide. After your group got its prongs on the Custodian, no one bothered to go after Amvinn. That was all the green paint the Brood would need for a long while afterwards.
“Stop that.” Amvinn orders, finally breaking the silence. You look over to see he’s half glanced at you, still hanging his head low. The anger in his eyes could even give Mia a run for her money… if she were still fit to feel anger at all, that is. You’d be flattered if not for the fact of how plutonic that hate is.
“… Stop what?” You cautiously ask, not wanting to shatter this horribly fragile situation.
“Feeling sad.” He clarifies. “It’s annoying.”
“I…I…” His demeanor is cold, and you don’t doubt that he’d make an attempt on your life if you aren’t careful with how you proceed, but the boy’s not as closed off as he wants you to think. There’s still an air of approachability about him. You doubt you can change how he feels about you with a mere few words, but you can’t possibly leave his grievances unacknowledged. Your Brood drove him from his dwelling, killed his Custodian, and you didn’t even grant him the decency of recognition over these past few days of cohabitation. You’ve disgraced yourself with such ignorance. Redemption may not be a prong’s reach away, but you have to start somewhere. Slowly, and ever-so carefully, you approach the frazzled wildling, sitting on the lumber nub just across from his own. He doesn’t bother looking up. “I’m sorry.” You tell him, voice steady. Another bout of silence passes as you wait for his reaction, but he remains stoic, unmoving and unspeaking. “I-… I know… what it means to lose what you love. I can’t imagine what you might think of me or the actions of those like me, a-and you aren’t mistaken for this, however please believe me when I tell you I know how you feel. I-” Before you can continue on with your exonerative courtship, you notice a trembling in Amvinn. A kind of soft shutter, as if he’s gone cold. Your muscles tense up instinctively, anticipating for the inevitable overspill of his wrath. Perhaps sympathy isn’t the irenic technique Amvinn wishes to hear at this current junction.
“Haa.” He sharply exhales. “Haha. Hahahaha! Ahahahahah! HAHAHAHAHAHAH!” He’s… Laughing? He’s cackling like he’s got a hole in his thinkpan. “AHAHAHA. Ahaha, ha.. ha..” As quickly as his twistedly jovial demeanor unveiled, Amvinn’s laughter soon fades, instead taking form into a quiet sob as streams of green roll down his face, decorating the forest floor. “you piece of shit…” He murmurs just loud enough for you to hear, fighting to get a hold of himself. His head shoots up and you get a clear look at his face again. The anger in his sightglobes is diluted, its potency clouded by the mossy colored tears adorning Amvinn’s face as he grits his fangs trying to keep his veneer of pride. A streak of Orchid flashes across his iris for the briskest of moments, and the water-works suddenly come to an abrupt halt. “Who the fuck do you think you are...? You know? You know? What the fuck do you know? You and every other fucking highblood I’ve met, you're all the fucking same! Every last one of you tried stepping all over me like I was a fucking grub the moment you laid your shitty purple eyes on me! And as soon as you realize you can’t, as soon as you realize that I. Wouldn’t. Let You. You go to any extent just to snuff me out. Beat me, cull me, turn me into Paint! They couldn’t stand that I wouldn’t role over and die, so your kind took everything from me! You left me to rot like a dreg in the gutter… You killed my fucking dad! And for what? To paint the halls of your shitty chapel...? So, please Kalzah, what gives you the fucking right?! Who are you to stand there, pretending as if you know, when you don't! How the fuck would you know anything about what I feel?!” You remain wordless for a horrifically tense instant, patiently waiting for Amvinn’s breathing to slow. All this shouting has whipped him up into a frenzy, leaving him panting like a ferocious beast. If you tried to speak anything to him in a state like this, it’d likely fall upon deaf soundfolds.
“… I know because… because they left me like that, too.” You quietly confess to the small lad once his breathing's died down. “I was a kid, I-… I thought I knew what I wanted. My Lusus, she-…” You shift your gaze down, you don’t have it in you to keep looking his pain in the face anymore. “she would always say that the others weren’t like me. That I was better somehow, that I was hatched to be a leader… I believed her, too. I thought that I was destined to rise to the top of my Caste, and that all I had to do was fight hard enough for what I wanted, give a little more of myself for it, until I’d finally be able to stand at the pinnacle of my aspirations… And I did just that. For sweeps I gave up pieces of myself, little concessions that let me fill my role better. Little compromises with who I was so that I could make way for who I was going to be. Giving piece after piece of myself to my Brood… a sacrifice at the altar of their expectations. I gave and I gave and I gave, all the way up until they had the Drones escort me out of my own Praisehive.” You squeeze your prongs in a firm grasp, feeling the indignity of your past ignorance. “I’m ashamed to say this, but I didn’t see the Following for what it really was until after they kicked me out. I never saw how fucked it could be until I was on the outside looking in.” You feel a lump forming in your soundchute, but you manage to swallow it down, continuing on. “We were vagabonds for a while, my Lusus and I. At least until I could find another Hive big enough to accommodate the both of us, which took far longer than I had originally believed it would. We had to take on less than dignified jobs to get by in the meantime. After only a few months of this, my resources were beginning to constrict. Some days, I could barely afford the frozen flavor discs at the sustenancestem, and… we ended up having to scrounge and steal for our supplies, like common urchins in the undermarkets. Some destined leader I turned out to be… Me and my Lusus never quite got along the way we used to after everything was said and done. We’d barely talk for more than a few exchanges at a time at our new hive. I could tell she was disappointed with me, like she had chosen the wrong wriggler back in the caverns. And I honestly couldn’t blame her for it. I was a failure as an Orchid, and I was a failure as a decent Troll as well… I like to think that the trials I faced out in the wild were atonement enough for my time in my Brood, but everything that I did for them… the blood I spilt… I don’t think I’ll ever find forgiveness for those sins… Those motherfuckers used me like the fool I was and I happily sullied my mortal soul on their behalf. They took all that I was and all that I dreamed to be and damned the rest.” Your fists tighten at the thought, enough so that a small purple stream flows from your palms.. “That’s how I know how you feel, Amvinn… You’re Furious… I know because I feel it too.” As soon as you finish your little speech, you realized that you were speaking to an actual person, and not just crafting hypothetical lectures while bathing in your ablution trap. The realization cause you to blush a fair deal. Looking back up, you’re shocked to find that a significant portion of anger Amvinn’s face was painted with just a moment ago has seemingly vanished. It hasn’t completely dispersed, but you had anticipated him to still be unapproachably furious with you, regardless of what you said. Instead, you’re met with a stern softness, a concerned yet jaded appearance. There’s yet another long pause, as Amvinn contemplates what you’ve confessed to him.
“…Your Lusus could talk?” He finally asks you in a calm voice. Not exactly what you were expecting to hear, but thankfully it appears your broaching of this sensitive subject hasn’t done any irreparable harm to your standing with the Oliveblood.
“Ah-… She was a Psychic Bipedal Gorebeast. A very rare breed, to my knowledge. Vastly intelligent with a formidable physicality. Her… her name was Asterion.” You say, trying to compose yourself. You see him wipe away a tear from his face and gazes upon it as the drop rests on his prong.
“You’re very genuine about what you say.” He states, still entranced with the green liquid. “I didn’t see so much as an ounce of deceitfulness or dishonesty the entire time you spoke. You aren’t like any highblood I’ve ever met, that’s for sure." He pauses once more, lowering his hand and looking to you once more. "That just leaves me with one question… If you hate the Following so much, why do you still wear the makeup?”
“Old habits die hard, I guess.” You try to joke. As you force a pitiful laugh from your chattergland, Amvinn simply stares at you, blankly waiting for your actual answer to come. “…For as long as I can remember, this makeup was my entire identity. Putting it on every morning was almost like a ritual. It was… meditative. Wearing it was a physical affirmation of who I was, it connected me to my Brothers and Sisters. I felt exposed without it, like I wasn’t really me if I didn’t have it on. It’s pathetic, I know, but I’d found myself grinding my fangs without it on, anxious of being seen without my face, even when I was somewhere private like my respiteblock. Without it, I really didn’t know who I was…”
“Hm.” Amvinn grunts, looking down, retrieving his key-shiv from the dirt. This isn’t like before, though. His head is still up and he’s still facing you, but his sightglobes have started to wander away. There’s a sort of disappointment in the gesture. You’re losing him…
“But…” He glances back up seeing you’re not done. “It doesn’t matter now.” You declare. Grabbing the collar of your hood, you run the golden cloth of your god tier across your face a couple of times. “I’m someone completely different from who I was. I suppose I just needed someone to point that out to me.” You close your oculum and present Amvinn with the largest smile you can muster, hoping he might take note of your earnest gesture. As you present your makeup-less visage to the collateral of your youth, a cool breeze brushes past your face, and for the first time in forever, you feel the fresh air against your bare skin. The sudden sensation makes you feel exposed, unprotected against the universe, but... maybe that's not such a bad thing... "This is who I am!" When you re-open your sightgloabs, it appears he has, as he’s perked up and bearing a small smirk of his own now.
“That’s… good to know.” He says, glancing back down at the key in his hand.
“… It’s an awful thing to grow up alone. I’m truly sorry for what I’ve done to you, Amvinn.” You say, entirely unsure if he’s actually forgiven you or not.
“Don’t be.” He says, rejecting your grovel without fanfare. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still not sure how I feel about you yet, but you weren’t that big a part of what happened to me back in the woods. Honestly, all you did was show up to my hive when your friends told you to tag along with their hunting party. I don’t really have any hard feelings towards you, and I didn’t mean to yell at you. I guess you just caught me at an… intense moment… And besides,” He brings a hand up to his windhole and pulls a necklace out from under his shirt. There are around five small beads strung into the string. No, wait, those are teeth. He has a tooth necklace. “Armored Grazebeasts shed their fangs like crazy, I always had a few to spare. I got to see my Stag-dad again, albeit as a sprite this time.” He runs his big prong along the teeth, closely cherishing them as he looks the calcium nubs over.
“That’s… that’s very nice. I’m happy for you.” You say. It’s a small catharsis, but your amends with Amvinn, however brief, is like a weight off your collar nubs. Hopefully this conversation is a sign that redemption isn’t the impossibility you thought it was. “… Do you mind if I ask you a question, Amvinn?”
“Hm?” He grunts in responce.
“I apologize if this oversteps your boundaries, but… what happened to your horns?” You ask, recalling the rather rakish set of antlers he used to sport.
“Sawed em off.” He answers nonchalantly.
“Youch.” You grumble as you lightly tap the base of your own. “…Can I ask why?”
“…” His brow furrows at the question, making it clear he’s uncomfortable with the asking.
“Um… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to press you in any way. Please, forget I brought this up.” You’re about to get up and let him be alone for a while when he stops you.
“… My world…” Amvinn says, grabbing your attention again. “The Land of Cults and Crypts, there was this practice the Doe Consorts there had. They called it ‘Giving Reverence’. It was a part of their worship for a Woodland Deity they believed in, where they replicated their likeness so they could be closer with them. Apparently there was a prophecy about this God, saying that they would one day emerge from the Vast Wilderness of Locac and present themselves to the people, taking their place as the Consort’s bridge into the afterlife. After this, they would unite the world of the living with the dead and bring their people wisdom and salvation with the knowledge they gained.”
“That’s quite the theology.” You declare. “So your quest was to find this Deity in the Woods of your world, yes? And lead them to their people?”
“If it was, I never had the chance to try.” He explains as he solemnly shakes his cranium. “Ya see, the prophecy also included a way to identify this God as well, so that the Consorts would know it was them when they saw it. Would you like to know what it said?” You vigorously nod, chopping at the bit to hear the doctrines of this Consortic Institution. “Watch ye forevermore the borders of the wild, for no Doe may know the hour of his emergence. And give ye reverence upon him when he doth reveal himself. For ye shall know him by his sight, for he bleeds the very Moss of the Forest, and carries with him the Crown of a Stag.”
“… You mean-“ You begin to ask, realizing the implications of the verse he recited.
“I was their God.” He preemptively answers.
“By the Four Corners…” You mutter to yourself. “… I’ve never met a God before.”
“Yeah, well don’t go getting your horns all in a twist, I ain’t.” He quickly dismisses. He sounds touchy on the subject. “But… yeah, they took one look at me and they knew who I was. How could they not? One of their main religious symbols was attached to my head. They even wore replicas of them as a sort of tribute to me… It’s funny, the Consorts on my friends’ worlds wouldn’t so much as give them the time of day. They thought they were vagabonds lurking about the Land, not realizing they were the Heroes prophesied in their cultural legends. It was different for me, though. Because of my horns, it was unquestionable that I was the one in Locac's prophecies.”
“Was that… a bad thing?” Judging by the fact that Amvinn’s sawed his own horns off, you chance a thought that shepherding a Faith might not’ve been all it’s cracked up to be for him.
“Not at first.” He sighs. “I mean, you get kicked around all your life, it’s nice when people start treating you like royalty. The One Above them All, that’s what they’d call me. OAA for short, or Oh-Ah if you say it phonetically. With a name like that, you could imagine how they treated me… and you could imagine how much I liked it, but…”
“But…?” You mimic, hoping he’ll continue. This is without a doubt the most interesting story you’ve heard in sweeps.
“It didn’t last long.” He obliges. “The thing about being a Living God is; people expect you to perform your miracles. The Consorts wanted me to be their bridge into the afterlife, to see beyond the veil.”
“Did you?” You inquire, waited in bated breath.
“No, I didn’t fucking see beyond the veil, I had no idea what that even meant!” He snaps at the folly of the question. “But I couldn’t just tell them that. So I made excuses, I dodged responsibilities, I even tried running away to different parts of the Land, but no matter where I went, everyone knew who I was almost instantaneously. Every day it felt like my bloodpusher was going to explode from all the stress of their expectations. I just couldn’t cope with it. Eventually, I exiled myself to the catacombs of the Land, into the crypts.”
“Crypts?” You interject.
“These enormous stone structures the consorts would house their dead in, sort of like hives for the deceased. The Consorts rarely went in there out of superstition. It was the only place it felt like I could get away from them. Escaping the living through the dead.” He says with a modicum of shame. “Even still, word eventually got around that I was hiding out there. They began traveling to me in pilgrimages, waiting for me at the entrances like a congregation. The braver of them traveled into the underground to speak with me. Each time, they all had the same question. What was I doing there? Why was I spending all my time hidden away and not with my people?”
“Well… why did you hide away, if I could ask?”
“Because it stressed me the fuck out!” Amvinn practically bursts. “All this admiration and approval, all of it hinging on me doing something I couldn’t do. I didn’t know how to look into the great beyond, I didn’t know how to be their bridge. It was like asking me to turn thin air into gold, I just didn’t have the capability to perform something like that. I didn’t even know where to start! And there were all these voices asking for this impossible task, begging me to shine the light, to lead the way, it was like they were constricting around me, choking me!… All I could do was hide and pray they wouldn’t find me.” He’s slumped down, practically deflated as the memories swirl in his pan. “I managed to get them off my posturepole for a while by telling them I was going on a spiritual journey and I needed to be alone in deep meditation. For a time, they stopped searching for me, not wanting to interrupt my reflection… but with the situation on Locac getting worse and the Denizen of the world terrorizing more and more Consort townships, the people became demanding... With all the pressure mounting on me again, I just… I just snapped. And I decided to… detach.”
“Is that when... when you sawed your horns off?” You doubt he needs your questions to work through his woes himself, however you feel the gesture is meaningful in some regard. It isn’t every day a former God confesses their self-doubts to you and you aren’t about to take a passive role in this conversation, even if that means offering paltry sentimentalities to let him know someone cares enough to listen attentively.
“It was the only thing connecting me to the Consorts. It was the only way they could find me. So… off they came.” The way he speaks, it’s clear he’s uncertain of his decisions. It doesn’t seem like he regrets what he did, simply that he wishes there was some other way he could’ve found. “I didn’t feel it, really. It was like I was in a trance, I didn’t even realize what I was doing until I was already halfway through my second horn. By then, there was no turning back. I was out. After that, none of the Consorts recognized me. Almost like a switch flipped, and they didn’t know who I was anymore. No more praises, no more godhood… no more me.”
“What happened after that?”
“Nothing.” He defeatedly shrugs. “At that point, I had botched my quest so badly that there was no salvaging it. I stayed in the crypts, too afraid of the failure I had left in the outside world to ever really leave. And with me gone and my team fumbling around the session, one thing led to another, and… now I’m here. With all the other failures…”
“It’s an unfortunate situation we’ve found ourselves in, I agree.” You tell him. “However, since we were destined to falter on our paths regardless of what we did... I’m glad we were able to meet once more, you and I. This time under better circumstances, mercifully.” He grunts at the sentiment.
“Yeah, well… Anyway, that’s why I sawed my horns off.” He unceremoniously concludes. “Hope it was all you were hoping for.”
“And then some!” You happily nod.
“…You’re weirdly peppy for a Highblood.” He informs you. “But you’re right, it’s… nice meeting again. It’s actually been kinda cathartic, unbottling emotions instead of pushing them down and letting them fester.” You smile brightly at what you would consider a declaration of peace between you and him. While you share this moment with your newly established companion, a thought dawns on you.
“…H-hey, I just realized; where’s Jason? I didn’t see him in the cave.” Amvinn looks at you for a moment before pointing up to the space above his cranium. That’s odd. Does he mean to indicate your horns? You reach up and feel your horns up and down, and yeah, there was something there. There’s a note attached to your right horn. A piece of paper? You slide it off and unfold the parchment. “Oh!”
***
Would you look at that, you’re Jason again. And just in time for the chapter’s end, no less. Let's see how his end of this story is going.
“You move an inch and I’ll shred you like a grub.” The mysterious assailant hisses, jabbing the gun barrel against your spine.
Isn’t that great! Well, good luck Jason! We’ll take the story to a different, more safer narrative-vessel while he deals with this situation. Let’s see who’s available right now. Both Esspin and Amvinn’s story potential were just dried out, so they’re off the table. Mia and Sara are still fast asleep, along with their consort companions. Guess that just leaves the ghosts for us to be. Greg, possibly? Wait, what? His story potential is minuscule! What, does this guy have literally nothing going on for him? Is he not important to the story at all? You don’t even think it’s physically possible to be him right now. How about we try for Haugrr then? He had a decently sized story potential. Yeah, let’s go for him!
You decide to be Haug̵̰̞̤̱͖̯̮̝̪̀̍̐͜͝r̵̡̛͓̟̳͚̰͉̯̭̯̺͖̞͕̍͊̔̂̓̈̑̃r̶̨̩̠̞͉̉̍̓͘͜ ̴͈̜̙̮͉̲̔̈́̋͒̾͋̚w̷͔͚̣̟͇̪̼͚̺̦̟͗̈̽̍͗͋̔͐͠͝͝h̷͉͗̿͑̽̓̉́̐̐͠į̷̧̧̛̝̠̯̰̙̤͉̞̮̥̜̋̃͗͌͜͠l̸̛̝̿̾̽͂̽̊̈́̇̄̍̉̈́̍͝é̴͖͙̬͕̓̿̄͗̄̓̈́̈̿͝ ̵̧͎̣̘͖͚̞͍̯͎̲́̋̈́͑̃̉̚J̴̛̛̥̲̼̲̒͗͒̓̉͗̉̈͋͋̀͘ä̴̢̲͎̰̱͕͈̬̰͔̜́̂̈́̐̇͂͗͐̚͠ͅš̴̝̦̐̀͂́̍̈́͘ơ̸̡̳͙͔̞̞͕͍̗͉̦̫̆̊̽͐́̈̍͊̔͊͜͝ͅǹ̸̨͎̙̬̥̠͈͕̱͇̘̥̑̽̔̒̈̂̀̕͜-̴̢̙̗̮̞̼͖͇͚̦̯̘̰̜̃̀̊͒̏́̓͊̎̏͘̕͝͝͝
Wha… What happened? You’re still Jason?! Did Haugrr just… did he just refuse to host the narrative? H-…he shouldn’t be able to do that. Son of a bitch, it looks like we’re stuck with Jason for the time being. It looks like you’ll have to weather the storm on this one. The storm being the psychotic gun Troll in the cave Jason bumbled into without a second thought. Or you could just activate the Checkpoint Jason set up instead. They are the perfect out for all situations, after all. Yeah, how about you do that.
Jason, activate your Checkpoint.