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+--- Thread: BWP 18+ Dabbling in the dark arts (/showthread.php?tid=7685)
Dabbling in the dark arts - Grievous - 5/9/2025
grievous is considered a 3-3-3 character
♔
「 Skill Point: Gravedigger 」
1
Something had died.
Grievous could smell the sickly sulphuric scent thick in his nostrils as he waded through the ruins. Nothing was normal about this place, a long-since-gone civilisation shrouded in a dense green haze. It was abnormal but alluring all at once, the burn in his lungs and watering of his eyes causing discomfort, and yet it was... intoxicating.
Perhaps it was his strange body nullifying the pain, or that the unusual ability to feel was heightened by this green fog, whatever the case, Grievous was addicted to being able to feel something.
It made navigating the crumbling walls difficult. The odd bump here, a random scrape there, he was blind on all accounts except that scent behind the burn; a familiar smell of death. It lured him in like a red string of fate, beckoning him through the stone corridors and out into the open air; if you could call this fog air.
He'd found himself in a courtyard, likely a thing of beauty in its time, now no better than a graveyard with discarded stones fallen and embedded in the ground like tombstones.
Grievous could smell the sickly sulphuric scent thick in his nostrils as he waded through the ruins. Nothing was normal about this place, a long-since-gone civilisation shrouded in a dense green haze. It was abnormal but alluring all at once, the burn in his lungs and watering of his eyes causing discomfort, and yet it was... intoxicating.
Perhaps it was his strange body nullifying the pain, or that the unusual ability to feel was heightened by this green fog, whatever the case, Grievous was addicted to being able to feel something.
It made navigating the crumbling walls difficult. The odd bump here, a random scrape there, he was blind on all accounts except that scent behind the burn; a familiar smell of death. It lured him in like a red string of fate, beckoning him through the stone corridors and out into the open air; if you could call this fog air.
He'd found himself in a courtyard, likely a thing of beauty in its time, now no better than a graveyard with discarded stones fallen and embedded in the ground like tombstones.
2
It was here that the scent resonated in his head, like a dinner bell summoning you to lunch.
The cadaver was partially buried, crushed by fallen rocks, and sunken into the ground. Beneath soil and rock, the preserved meal remained, skin tought and meat rotting with the most divine flavouring. Grievous couldn't help but begin to dig at the surface, a paw catching the top of the decomposing skull and pulling it from the concealed body effortlessly.
They'd been dead for a while, he could already imagine peeling the meat off the bones so easily, so much so that saliva began to pool at the edges of his lips.
Drip, drip, dripping onto the grave he began to dig.
The cadaver was partially buried, crushed by fallen rocks, and sunken into the ground. Beneath soil and rock, the preserved meal remained, skin tought and meat rotting with the most divine flavouring. Grievous couldn't help but begin to dig at the surface, a paw catching the top of the decomposing skull and pulling it from the concealed body effortlessly.
They'd been dead for a while, he could already imagine peeling the meat off the bones so easily, so much so that saliva began to pool at the edges of his lips.
Drip, drip, dripping onto the grave he began to dig.
RE: Dabbling in the dark arts - narrator - 5/11/2025
Rune Discovery : 「 Failure 」
Whatever perverse thrill you got out of the discomfort you were experiencing, the effects of the fog were no laughing matter. Even through the sick sense of pleasure it brought, every breath you took crept further toward a weak rattle, phlegm catching in your throat as your eyes stung with increasing intensity. From where you had started in your travels, it seemed to be most heavily concentrated in this area - and still you remained, staring out at a green-tinged world with stubborn denial.
The rot pulled you closer.
Weaving through the abandoned courtyard, a crushing silence loomed over the moment as you stared down at a twisted corpse.
If you weren't so focused on your next meal, you might have caught a glimmer of something - something out of your peripheral - a faint blue glow, perhaps...
But your rumbling stomach drowned out whatever passive perception you might otherwise have had, and you plunged yourself into the task of unearthing your prize.
Maybe after you'd eaten your fill, you could better focus...
The blue glow slowly began to fade until only the fog remained.
The rot pulled you closer.
Weaving through the abandoned courtyard, a crushing silence loomed over the moment as you stared down at a twisted corpse.
If you weren't so focused on your next meal, you might have caught a glimmer of something - something out of your peripheral - a faint blue glow, perhaps...
But your rumbling stomach drowned out whatever passive perception you might otherwise have had, and you plunged yourself into the task of unearthing your prize.
Maybe after you'd eaten your fill, you could better focus...
The blue glow slowly began to fade until only the fog remained.
RE: Dabbling in the dark arts - Niriel - 5/11/2025
"It’s in poor form, you see,"
A voice, soft, lilting, and strangely unhurried, whispered through the grotesque miasma.
"To dine before introducing oneself."
The words seemed to linger in the fog, carried low against the moist soil that clung desperately to her toes. Her lithe, slender legs wound through the thinning pines to reveal the shadowed silhouette of her body standing at the precipice of the stranger's contorted frame. Somewhere beyond the ruined stones and the weeping bone-circle, the faintest glimmer of blue stirred with uncanny, haphazard rhythm—just enough to catch the wet gleam of this brute's eye.
A pause. Silence breathed between them, and Niriel continued to watch the large soul-wanderer feast.
His silhouette convulsed behind cracked masonry, casting eerie shadows against the ruined walls of a bygone era. The Priestess cleared her throat abruptly.
"I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion. I find this display... educational." A smile pulled at the corners of her lips now, an unsettling sweetness of honey coating her voice. An assured brow cocked high. "Your appetite is—" she paused delicately, as if playfully weighing the cost of her verbiage,
"—memorable."
Another step.
"Tell me... why do you feast upon this rotting flesh? Was it hunger that led you here, or curiosity?"
As she awaited his response, the woman reflected for but a brief moment. She couldn't deny the effects of the fog. Daggers wedged themselves into her throat, and yet the poison air brought forth a desire, a lull of comfort. A siren song she could not bear to pull herself from. Like him, she was unmistakably hungry. And yet, for some unknown reason, there was consciousness. Once she had emerged from the fog, her sinuses cleared, and her senses had been restored. From the looks of it, however, the brute had not been so fortunate. Or perhaps he was truly just some sick individual.
RE: Dabbling in the dark arts - Grievous - 5/22/2025
grievous is considered a 3-3-3 character
♔
「 Skill Point: Gravedigger 」
1
He was intoxicated, the fog of green washing his brain of individual thoughts so that the graverobber lingered in its grasp, his paw digging ever deeper into the grave. Like clockwork, they pulled and shovelled soil from beneath the stone bricks, uncovering the remains of the creature that lay partially-submerged in the earth.
It was during a moment of sobriety as his husky breath exhaled that he felt the sensation of someone approaching, the scuff of steps here, the muttering of words there; enough to draw the digger's mind out from within and turn his head to the woman who looked upon him.
It was during a moment of sobriety as his husky breath exhaled that he felt the sensation of someone approaching, the scuff of steps here, the muttering of words there; enough to draw the digger's mind out from within and turn his head to the woman who looked upon him.
2
She was smattered in hues of blue, distorted by the fog. He stared for a moment, eyes beginning to ache, and water from the dirty air that contaminated them. Tears were blinked away as the weeping man smiled a lopsided smirk, a snort pushing from his nose.
Perhaps it was starvation once, but old habits die hard,he husked out, turning his eyes back to the meal of rotting sinew. It was not quite free, but the man was getting close - gaining ground so to say.
RE: Dabbling in the dark arts - Niriel - 6/14/2025
The woman's smile waned, drawing from her lips in a deep exhale as the ghost of mirth dissolved on her tongue. She drifted closer, now beside him, close enough that the damp mist around his contorted form brushed the hem of her dark figure.
A boisterous snort occupied the silence that drifted momentarily between them.
"Come now, soul-wanderer" She pried, "There is little left for you here. No sweetness in that ruin. Only maggots who whisper lies when they burrow near your ear."
Niriel's dark eyes shifted with an uncanny drag, flickering with a subtle pause until she once again met the gaze of his hunched form.
A paw, swarthy and slender, pressed against his mud-slick shoulder.
"Breathe. Just once. Like you had before. The fog's pestilence consumed your good sense, but you have not forgotten now, have you?" Her final words drifted lowly, as if mimicking the internal dialogue the brute required.
Her voice softened to an almost lover’s hush, coaxing the stubborn beast amidst the fog.
"Come, sweet carrion-bird. Look at me. There is fresher meat above ground, and it is yours,"
And now, with a tilt of her head and stoic grace, she added,
"Or do you fear what you’ll hunger for, once the grave's hold loosens?"