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Post by Briar on Mar 12, 2021 21:49:59 GMT -6
Gods, he didn't want to be here. Briar looked at the temple, and repressed a shudder of revulsion. He'd heard of this place. Sell a bit of your soul for magic power - and he wasn't even going to be the one to wield it, when all was said and done. How was that for an unpleasant deal? If he didn't need the money so badly, he wouldn't have done it. But he needed to find a place to stay, and Yeo-reum needed to be kept fed so he didn't raid farms and get some sort of bounty put on his head. Creatures like him were a dime a dozen here, and no one thought twice about putting one down if it was making a nuisance of itself. Still... Of all the parts of yourself you could sell, Briar never thought his soul would be the first thing to get harvested.
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Post by Briar on Mar 12, 2021 21:52:23 GMT -6
He took one last look up at the dais, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath, putting all such thoughts out of his head. If he kept dwelling on it, then he was never going to get it over with. The deal was already brokered, and he didn't want any more trouble.
They said it grew back. He hoped they were right.
When he opened his eyes again, he took the steps up, objects in hand, and thought very resolutely about anything other than what he was about to do. At least he was practiced enough at that. You could do a lot of things you didn't think you'd be capable of with the power of just not thinking about it, if you had to. And Briar had done worse than what he was doing now.
But it was a good thing they'd warned him about the hooded figures at the top.
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Post by Briar on Mar 12, 2021 21:55:13 GMT -6
If they hadn't, he might have dropped everything and run as soon as he saw them. It wasn't a comforting sight, even knowing that it was coming, to see them all waiting for him. Reminded him too much of other things.
But these people didn't know him. They were just here to... serve whatever function it was that they served. Hell if he knew. If he followed the rules, he'd be fine. Other people had done this before.
The bloody altar brought with it no comfort, and the smell of it was almost enough to make him sick. All the more reason to work quickly. He placed the items on the altar, thinking pointedly about things other than the taint of dried blood, then crammed the berries into his mouth. If they had a taste, he didn't register it. Maybe that was for the best though; healing medicines tended to be bitter.
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Post by Briar on Mar 12, 2021 21:58:25 GMT -6
The part that was next was the one he liked least of all. The spirit dagger was unmistakable; they hadn't described it to him in any great detail, but it was the only thing there that would have fit the name, and the blade itself was chipped - by what power, he couldn't have guessed. It looked sharp, which he was glad for. He had the unfortunate and intimate knowledge that dull knives hurt more.
A knife to cut the soul. Boy, holding that in your hands wasn't unsettling. He had to swallow around the lump in his throat before he could raise it to his arm, which seemed like the easiest thing to cut. Better that than his hands, which he had to use, and which would inevitably hurt more if he had chosen to cut them.
He had done worse, including to himself, so in the end the motion of it wasn't so hard.
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Post by Briar on Mar 12, 2021 22:02:18 GMT -6
Just a quick slice over the skin of his arm. Almost painless. He knew just where to cut to get the blood to flow too, and he watched grim-faced as it dripped over each of the crystals he had brought.
So this was how the magic happened, he thought. Not that he trusted mages to begin with, but from now on he'd certainly trust them less.
The last step was to pray, so he knelt and went through the motions. He didn't have anything to ask the gods though, and he wasn't seeking to do this to gain magical power himself. So he thought about the only thing he could really pray for in this situation, which was for it to go quickly and without incident. He didn't want to come out of this with all his emotions gone, or half dead, or whatever the possible complications were for this kind of procedure.
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Post by Jack on Mar 23, 2021 20:22:17 GMT -6
Node Creation: Success Cool-down will End: March 12, 2022
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