Residual (Chapter Six)
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mindcrackloveWe get to learn some more about Skullblades, a bit about Blame, and discover another freaking language. (Don't try to pronounce it. Speak Dranonic. Don't speak Skullspeak.)
Vechs also is likely to have a panic attack, either now or soon.
Chapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Chapter Six
Sunspire, Mincraftia. September 8, year 373. Time instance 483Z.
Vechs’s entire body was shaking violently as he subconsciously leaned against Blame for support, mind reeling. His eyes eventually raised from the ground to the surrounding area and looked around.
He had caused this. He has created the monsters responsible for this.
Dammit, he had wanted to create something challenging and dangerous, but only for those willing to brave it, and it was never a permanent death! He hadn’t meant for this to happen!
He barely noticed that Aureylian was hugging him, that Blame was explaining to everyone what had happened, and that everyone who had tested themselves within the maps previously paled considerably.
Guilt and panic. These monsters were not to be trifled with.
“But what do they want?” Pause was asking when Vechs finally tuned into the conversation.
“It’s pretty obvious, innit?” Guude’s arms were crossed. “They want to kill Vechs and burn this world to the ground while they’re at it.”
“They want him to suffer, and then they want to kill him.” Zisteau corrected. “It sounds like they’re a little ticked off about him becoming mortal.”
“Which is a bit odd. Wouldn’t they be able to tell that we were all torn forcefully from the Vortex, and that it wasn’t just Vechs willingly leaving?” Paul brought up. “Something fishy is definitely going on here.”
“Wait.” Blame closed his eyes briefly to think. “Dammit! Do you remember what Norazdomu said? A small spark of the corruption fled to the Vortex! It must have corrupted the living orbs, energized them, and made them evil.”
“Corruption does tend to make one unreasonable.” Zisteau said mildly. “Your judgment is completely screwed and you’re not really in control of yourself- it’s like you’re halfway in control, and what reasoning you have is totally skewed. “
“I thought Norazdomu said it was fixed- he fixed it, didn’t he? That’s why we can become worldbuilders again, when we die.” Nebris said, frowning.
“I think it was in the crystal.” Guude said slowly. “His idea of fixing it was to fire it off into the Vortex and relink a few of the energy lines in the crystal.”
“How can you tell what he did to it? All energy lines are completely blank to me, even when I was close to the crystal.” Pause demanded.
“I formed it, guy! I usually know what the hell is going on with it! The only exception is when it was completely encased in corruption and zombie pigman.”
“Not pleasant.” Zisteau informed them. “I have a life tip for you: don’t stick powerful glowing crystals into your chest. Do you remember what I said about skewed reasoning? There you go. Exhibit A.”
“I could use an energy line.” Vechs said quietly.
“What? When?” Blame demanded.
“When the crystal shocked me. I could feel my monstrous line. It’s how I switched.”
“What about with the dragon? How did you change then?”
“I…I don’t know. It was like a switch was thrown in my mind. I didn’t make it happen.”
“You were defending me.” Aureylian mentioned. “It happened when I got slashed. You freaked out and transformed. I don’t know who was more freaked out, you or me.”
“Ha, yeah…I’m surprised you weren’t, yknow, shocked…when I explained.”
“Vechs, it was pretty obvious that you were a really weird dude when I met you. Honestly that kind of explained a lot- that and the worldbuilder thing- and made you a lot more normal.”
“I don’t think I classify as normal under any definition you may have.”
“…You’re right. You’re completely bananas.”
“Are you two done?” Blame asked. “And Vechs, could you maybe lean on her and not me? I know you want to and that’s my shoulder that’s bruised.”
Vechs turned slightly red and stopped leaning on him, but could support himself by now. He was grateful for the distraction of his friends to keep him from brooding on the situation.
Paul exchanged an odd glace with Blame, one that Vechs couldn’t identify but made him highly suspicious. What was going on?
“We need to get back to treating the wounded.” Jsano brought up. “Just because Vechs and Blame got whisked off on a field trip to hell doesn’t mean we can all take a break.”
Blame nodded and got to his feet. “Right. We need to focus on the most important thing right now. Come on.” He casually stole some bandages from Vechs’s toolbelt and walked into the crowd of Skullblades. The others handed out bandages (Vechs was not the only one prepared) and spread out as well.
~~~
After about half an hour, Vechs heard some commotion a few meters away.
“You are not a real Skullblade. What are you helping us?”
He glanced up to see a mildly injured Skullblade on his feet, looking suspiciously at Blame. His mask, like all the others’, was an unnatural white color and had no horns- just made to look like a human skull. Blame did look out of place with his ash-colored and horned mask.
“I am a Skullblade. You are Sunspine; I am not.”
“Lies. You are no Sunspine, you are no Shadefang.”
“No. I am Ashenhorn.”
“You lie. The Ashenhorn clan was wiped out in the Great Burning a century ago.”
“Not entirely.” Blame stood straight up; he had been kneeling to help another Skullblade before. “There was one survivor.”
“Oh, and am I meant to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“You mock the Skullblades and our fallen clan by creating a false mask or stealing one from their graves.”
Blame made a quiet growling sound in his throat. “Never accuse me of that again. I watched my people burn to death in front of me. I earned my mask at the age of eight.”
“That was a hundred years ago! No mortal survives that long.” the Sunspine sneered.
Blame stepped forward to look into the other man’s eyes. The green eyes of the Sunspine couldn’t look into the dark eyes of Blame for long.
“Let’s just say that Vallor’roth had plans other than a mortal death for me.”
The other Skullblade hissed and when he spoke, it sounded like complete and total gibberish to Vechs and the other couple of Mindcrackers nearby who had paused to watch the encounter.
Skullspeak. The bizarre and nearly unpronounceable language of the Skullblades.
“Yiz loha fie mdaor Vallor’roth’m qosa’oql xwous ni pa Omyaqyihq. Yiz loha fie xwous ni yoba yum gobih!” He paused. “Your help is not needed, outsider.”
Note: this was not a translation of what he said previously.
“Wind!” snapped a second Skullblade. “These outsiders wish to help us. I agree with you that he should not wear the mask of the Ashenhorns or claim favor with Vallor’roth, but…”
Blame had closed his eyes to focus and rubbed the sides of his head to help, but at her words opened his eyes again and spoke, with some difficulty and corrections, “Kaltaerion pehqal sf yisa ni qinyuqt. Omyzonxy um qi siha.”
The Sunspine known as Wind froze, surprised.
“Only a Skullblade would know Skullspeak.” Blame growled. “My name is Blame the Controller. I am the last of the Ashenhorn clan of Skullblades. I did not change myself to Sunspine when Ashwatch was burned to the ground. I did not die due to events that I will not disclose to you.”
Also not a translation.
Still Wind hesitated. “When is the soul safest?”
“When the name is lost in silence.” Blame fired back immediately. “And before you ask about the lack of ribs; thirteen don’t fit.”
An ancient phrase. The soul and silence bit, not the ribs.
Now that Blame mentioned it, Vechs could see that every Skullblade around him (except for the younger kids, most of whom lacked masks and were doing their best to hide their faces anyway), had white ribs on their outfits, over where their actual ribs would be. Doing the math, Vechs realized that each one must represent a decade; Blame was a little over 130 years old, and estimating the ages of all of these people, it made sense.
“Do you have any other stupid questions or can I go back to treating the wounded?” Blame demanded.
“I…am sorry for doubting you.” the Sunspine mumbled. “I am Windstripped Branch.”
To each clan, a different naming convention.
“You Sunspines always had weird names.” Blame muttered, otherwise ignoring him and going back to what he was doing.
Vechs sidestepped over to Wind. “Don’t mess with him.” he advised. “I’ve known him for about fifty years and he’s scary. That sword of his cuts through anything.”
Wind looked startled, looking over Vechs and doing a quick judgment of his age. “You’re not-“
“I’m a little over seventy.” Vechs grinned mischievously at the look on the Sunspine’s face. “And I’m one of the youngest ones here. I think Guude’s the oldest. Why don’t you go ask him how old he is? Or Paul. He’s an old man.”
“I can hear you!”
Vechs snickered and moved away, leaving Wind confused and slightly scared.
“So how old are you?” Vechs found himself asking Guude a few minutes later.
Guude leveled glare at him.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Awww, come on!”
“No.”
“Etho was telling me a few weeks ago that he was about four hundred, and if you’re older than he is-“
“Vechs, for your own personal safety you should stop talking.”
Vechs shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Guude muttered and stalked away.
Nebris stepped up to Vechs and whispered quietly, “Guude’s about six hundred and forty but don’t tell him I told you.”
Vechs giggled. “Imagine the looks on these Skullblade’s faces if we told them that he’d need sixty-four ribs- one for each decade!”
Nebris laughed along with him, the two drawing Aureylian’s attention. She joined in once they explained the joke and eventually the three of them were discussing the ages of members of the group (Aureylian was by far the youngest, the next three being Vechs, Chad, and Zisteau, all about fifty years older) and laughing at those Skullblades that overheard and adopted similar expressions to Wind’s.
Vechs was very, very grateful for the distraction from his thoughts. He was exhausted and scared, guilty and worried, but at least he had his friends, and at least they were a lot of fun and could keep him feeling okay.
For now, at least.
Vechs also is likely to have a panic attack, either now or soon.
Chapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Chapter Six
Sunspire, Mincraftia. September 8, year 373. Time instance 483Z.
Vechs’s entire body was shaking violently as he subconsciously leaned against Blame for support, mind reeling. His eyes eventually raised from the ground to the surrounding area and looked around.
He had caused this. He has created the monsters responsible for this.
Dammit, he had wanted to create something challenging and dangerous, but only for those willing to brave it, and it was never a permanent death! He hadn’t meant for this to happen!
He barely noticed that Aureylian was hugging him, that Blame was explaining to everyone what had happened, and that everyone who had tested themselves within the maps previously paled considerably.
Guilt and panic. These monsters were not to be trifled with.
“But what do they want?” Pause was asking when Vechs finally tuned into the conversation.
“It’s pretty obvious, innit?” Guude’s arms were crossed. “They want to kill Vechs and burn this world to the ground while they’re at it.”
“They want him to suffer, and then they want to kill him.” Zisteau corrected. “It sounds like they’re a little ticked off about him becoming mortal.”
“Which is a bit odd. Wouldn’t they be able to tell that we were all torn forcefully from the Vortex, and that it wasn’t just Vechs willingly leaving?” Paul brought up. “Something fishy is definitely going on here.”
“Wait.” Blame closed his eyes briefly to think. “Dammit! Do you remember what Norazdomu said? A small spark of the corruption fled to the Vortex! It must have corrupted the living orbs, energized them, and made them evil.”
“Corruption does tend to make one unreasonable.” Zisteau said mildly. “Your judgment is completely screwed and you’re not really in control of yourself- it’s like you’re halfway in control, and what reasoning you have is totally skewed. “
“I thought Norazdomu said it was fixed- he fixed it, didn’t he? That’s why we can become worldbuilders again, when we die.” Nebris said, frowning.
“I think it was in the crystal.” Guude said slowly. “His idea of fixing it was to fire it off into the Vortex and relink a few of the energy lines in the crystal.”
“How can you tell what he did to it? All energy lines are completely blank to me, even when I was close to the crystal.” Pause demanded.
“I formed it, guy! I usually know what the hell is going on with it! The only exception is when it was completely encased in corruption and zombie pigman.”
“Not pleasant.” Zisteau informed them. “I have a life tip for you: don’t stick powerful glowing crystals into your chest. Do you remember what I said about skewed reasoning? There you go. Exhibit A.”
“I could use an energy line.” Vechs said quietly.
“What? When?” Blame demanded.
“When the crystal shocked me. I could feel my monstrous line. It’s how I switched.”
“What about with the dragon? How did you change then?”
“I…I don’t know. It was like a switch was thrown in my mind. I didn’t make it happen.”
“You were defending me.” Aureylian mentioned. “It happened when I got slashed. You freaked out and transformed. I don’t know who was more freaked out, you or me.”
“Ha, yeah…I’m surprised you weren’t, yknow, shocked…when I explained.”
“Vechs, it was pretty obvious that you were a really weird dude when I met you. Honestly that kind of explained a lot- that and the worldbuilder thing- and made you a lot more normal.”
“I don’t think I classify as normal under any definition you may have.”
“…You’re right. You’re completely bananas.”
“Are you two done?” Blame asked. “And Vechs, could you maybe lean on her and not me? I know you want to and that’s my shoulder that’s bruised.”
Vechs turned slightly red and stopped leaning on him, but could support himself by now. He was grateful for the distraction of his friends to keep him from brooding on the situation.
Paul exchanged an odd glace with Blame, one that Vechs couldn’t identify but made him highly suspicious. What was going on?
“We need to get back to treating the wounded.” Jsano brought up. “Just because Vechs and Blame got whisked off on a field trip to hell doesn’t mean we can all take a break.”
Blame nodded and got to his feet. “Right. We need to focus on the most important thing right now. Come on.” He casually stole some bandages from Vechs’s toolbelt and walked into the crowd of Skullblades. The others handed out bandages (Vechs was not the only one prepared) and spread out as well.
~~~
After about half an hour, Vechs heard some commotion a few meters away.
“You are not a real Skullblade. What are you helping us?”
He glanced up to see a mildly injured Skullblade on his feet, looking suspiciously at Blame. His mask, like all the others’, was an unnatural white color and had no horns- just made to look like a human skull. Blame did look out of place with his ash-colored and horned mask.
“I am a Skullblade. You are Sunspine; I am not.”
“Lies. You are no Sunspine, you are no Shadefang.”
“No. I am Ashenhorn.”
“You lie. The Ashenhorn clan was wiped out in the Great Burning a century ago.”
“Not entirely.” Blame stood straight up; he had been kneeling to help another Skullblade before. “There was one survivor.”
“Oh, and am I meant to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“You mock the Skullblades and our fallen clan by creating a false mask or stealing one from their graves.”
Blame made a quiet growling sound in his throat. “Never accuse me of that again. I watched my people burn to death in front of me. I earned my mask at the age of eight.”
“That was a hundred years ago! No mortal survives that long.” the Sunspine sneered.
Blame stepped forward to look into the other man’s eyes. The green eyes of the Sunspine couldn’t look into the dark eyes of Blame for long.
“Let’s just say that Vallor’roth had plans other than a mortal death for me.”
The other Skullblade hissed and when he spoke, it sounded like complete and total gibberish to Vechs and the other couple of Mindcrackers nearby who had paused to watch the encounter.
Skullspeak. The bizarre and nearly unpronounceable language of the Skullblades.
“Yiz loha fie mdaor Vallor’roth’m qosa’oql xwous ni pa Omyaqyihq. Yiz loha fie xwous ni yoba yum gobih!” He paused. “Your help is not needed, outsider.”
Note: this was not a translation of what he said previously.
“Wind!” snapped a second Skullblade. “These outsiders wish to help us. I agree with you that he should not wear the mask of the Ashenhorns or claim favor with Vallor’roth, but…”
Blame had closed his eyes to focus and rubbed the sides of his head to help, but at her words opened his eyes again and spoke, with some difficulty and corrections, “Kaltaerion pehqal sf yisa ni qinyuqt. Omyzonxy um qi siha.”
The Sunspine known as Wind froze, surprised.
“Only a Skullblade would know Skullspeak.” Blame growled. “My name is Blame the Controller. I am the last of the Ashenhorn clan of Skullblades. I did not change myself to Sunspine when Ashwatch was burned to the ground. I did not die due to events that I will not disclose to you.”
Also not a translation.
Still Wind hesitated. “When is the soul safest?”
“When the name is lost in silence.” Blame fired back immediately. “And before you ask about the lack of ribs; thirteen don’t fit.”
An ancient phrase. The soul and silence bit, not the ribs.
Now that Blame mentioned it, Vechs could see that every Skullblade around him (except for the younger kids, most of whom lacked masks and were doing their best to hide their faces anyway), had white ribs on their outfits, over where their actual ribs would be. Doing the math, Vechs realized that each one must represent a decade; Blame was a little over 130 years old, and estimating the ages of all of these people, it made sense.
“Do you have any other stupid questions or can I go back to treating the wounded?” Blame demanded.
“I…am sorry for doubting you.” the Sunspine mumbled. “I am Windstripped Branch.”
To each clan, a different naming convention.
“You Sunspines always had weird names.” Blame muttered, otherwise ignoring him and going back to what he was doing.
Vechs sidestepped over to Wind. “Don’t mess with him.” he advised. “I’ve known him for about fifty years and he’s scary. That sword of his cuts through anything.”
Wind looked startled, looking over Vechs and doing a quick judgment of his age. “You’re not-“
“I’m a little over seventy.” Vechs grinned mischievously at the look on the Sunspine’s face. “And I’m one of the youngest ones here. I think Guude’s the oldest. Why don’t you go ask him how old he is? Or Paul. He’s an old man.”
“I can hear you!”
Vechs snickered and moved away, leaving Wind confused and slightly scared.
“So how old are you?” Vechs found himself asking Guude a few minutes later.
Guude leveled glare at him.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Awww, come on!”
“No.”
“Etho was telling me a few weeks ago that he was about four hundred, and if you’re older than he is-“
“Vechs, for your own personal safety you should stop talking.”
Vechs shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Guude muttered and stalked away.
Nebris stepped up to Vechs and whispered quietly, “Guude’s about six hundred and forty but don’t tell him I told you.”
Vechs giggled. “Imagine the looks on these Skullblade’s faces if we told them that he’d need sixty-four ribs- one for each decade!”
Nebris laughed along with him, the two drawing Aureylian’s attention. She joined in once they explained the joke and eventually the three of them were discussing the ages of members of the group (Aureylian was by far the youngest, the next three being Vechs, Chad, and Zisteau, all about fifty years older) and laughing at those Skullblades that overheard and adopted similar expressions to Wind’s.
Vechs was very, very grateful for the distraction from his thoughts. He was exhausted and scared, guilty and worried, but at least he had his friends, and at least they were a lot of fun and could keep him feeling okay.
For now, at least.
Tags:
no subject
Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015 01:42 am (UTC)Each letter in the English language translates to a letter in Skullspeak.
Thus, it creates complete and total gibberish when translated and it's really annoying to try and pronounce so don't.
no subject
Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015 04:36 pm (UTC)Yes. Yes they do.
no subject
Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015 06:37 pm (UTC)I translated actual sentences into Skullspeak using the letter conversion and typed those out, so they did indeed say something- you'll notice the name "Kaltaerion" in what Blame said.
no subject
Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, July 2nd, 2015 02:31 am (UTC)Kaltaerion burned my home to nothing. Ashwatch is no more. ?
Is this correct?
no subject
Date: Thursday, July 2nd, 2015 03:38 am (UTC)...yes.
Is this Hawk?
no subject
Date: Saturday, July 4th, 2015 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, July 4th, 2015 04:06 am (UTC)I don't know who you are but I'm very, very impressed.
no subject
Date: Saturday, July 4th, 2015 02:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, July 4th, 2015 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, July 5th, 2015 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015 02:19 pm (UTC)And yeah. Shit only goes MORE down next chapter. If I ever finish writing it.
no subject
Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, April 12th, 2015 04:36 pm (UTC)A bit like chapter four of Monstrous.