Poisonous Fox

Closed (7/9) +2

Body: 46 (+3)

In hindsight, drinking fortified spirits until I passed out was a suboptimal mechanism for coping.

My head throbbed from dehydration, my tongue tasted awful and slimy, and I had slept poorly with sharp rocks beneath me. Everything was sore. My wounds appeared inflamed. And as if to confirm that the decision had been a poor one, both of my arms ached and the skin felt like rubber stretched thinly over lava. Melted, thin, and runny. I had made gains the night before, but I would not repeat it.

A bottle, what in common vernacular could be called a fifth, entirely consumed.

My pants were dry.

I felt no urge to urinate.

Odd, how that occurred to me. This body was a strange one. Magical, even. I still hated it.

It took far too long for me to collect myself, to wake up, as it were.

And only then, when I was certain that I could move, I listened.

I heard the wind.

I smelled acrid smoke similar to overly crowded and smogged up industry, but nothing else.

I appeared safe for the moment.

Then there was time to inspect my wounds. But first, I sat down, leaned against the wall, still under the shelf, and I took a drink from my flagon. The water had some spice to it, a remnant from the flagon’s previous contents, not an unwholesome flavor.

Something was digging into my left side. Belatedly, I realized it was my satchel. A poor pillow, and I had gotten tangled in its strap. That, and my jacket, made extracting my wounded left side difficult. Moving my left was still agony, magic had not fixed the problem. My stomach churned in fear at the thought of looking. How bad would it be? Nobody else was here to help, it was all on me. A part of me wished Nick had survived, just to have someone familiar watching my back. I realized I was stalling.

Carefully, very carefully, I slipped my arm out through the straps. Small whimpers escaped my throat and my eyes leaked. Minutes passed. My ears flat, my tail limp, my whimpers growing in volume. Skin pulled away where I had been shot. Skin stuck to the insides of my leather jacket, fused with the material.

Like ripping off a bandaid.

I could do this. I had been through worse.

I yanked my arm from the sleeve.

“Motherswear it!” I screamed in pain before I slammed my jaws shut with a click. I should have bit down on something. I was lucky to still have my tongue.

That had hurt. A lot.

Body: 47 (+1)

I leaned back against the wall and sat back, panting. Maybe a little break. I could worry about everything else later. I drifted off and welcomed the distance from the pain…

Another dream.

This was not real. I chanted it, over and over. But the emotions came too strong too quick. I was overwhelmed by dread and terror. How old was I? It must have been young. A child. These were the thoughts of a child.

Because I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the horror lurked beyond the door.

Were I to pound on the door, there would be pain. Were I to open the door, pain. It was dark. Cramped. Too hot. A putrid incense burned my nose and left my eyes watering.

“Good girls make pretty little friends,” a voice spoke from the otherside, from the horror. “And only good girls can come out and play.”

…I shuddered awake.

Those dreams, already elusive, already fleeting, could not be forgotten quickly enough. Sweat slicked my skin and left my fur feeling gross.

A sip from the flagon, but just water.

I needed something stronger. So long as I practiced moderation… it should be safe. I found the second bottle, my last bottle. I uncapped and took a swig, fire burning itself down my throat and out my nose.

I felt lightheaded, a strong improvement. Good.

I re-capped the bottle and stowed it. I had a feeling I would need more later, to chase these nightmares away. Besides, I needed to check my wounds. I could not afford to be drunk.

But I had drank enough that the spirits fortified my resolve. Without further delay, I checked my wounds; I lifted my tank-top, ignored the parts of my stomach where too-many–no!

Focusing solely on my ribs, there was a pale strip of puffy flesh that oozed where I had been grazed. None of the flesh was missing, at least not from the shot. But the discoloration, the pain, and the smell–not good. The flesh might have even been dead. Or cursed.

Checking my deltoid, where I had been shot through and through, it was similar. There was probably a line of dead flesh running from entrance to exit.

I had no clue how to treat this. I worried rot or poison would set in. There were too many unknowns. I needed help. I needed people, and preferably not the bandits.

Unless I had looted a magical healing solution. I doubted it, but it was worth checking. And I needed to go through the haul anyways. Besides, I had a map, and with luck, I could find civilization nearby.

I began emptying the sack.

Probably the most precious find had been the map. I set the rolled and folded paper aside to come back later to, and kept going.

I had a few tubers from the bandits’ pantry, but I expected that they had to be cooked to be edible. Especially after I sniffed one. Despite reservations, I gave on a nibble, just the slightest bite. They tasted like stale boots. I set the tubers aside for when hunger drove me to desperate measures.

Next up was a series of objects: multiple purses, of various makes, sizes, and materials. The nicest one had come from the Red Queen’s office, and was crafted from a pale leather with an embroidered saber. The pouch on its own looked valuable, and I decided to keep that one based on those merits. The rest of them, I emptied out on the ground before me. There were many coins, metal disks with the center filled in with gem-like glass. They almost seemed like stained glass windows, except the material was all the same color.

Though, some of the coins emitted a faint light from their gem-like centers.

The moment I poured them out, a multi-hued glow filled the dark crevasse, although the glow must have been fainter than it seemed. Still, I could not risk exposure, not at this time. I collected all the coins that glowed and filled my newest and best pouch with them. With them put away, I picked up a few of the dim coins, the ones that did not glow at all.

These were not the first time I had seen the coins of the land, what I assumed passed for currency.

I had found them in the hundeors’ den, and I had seen them when the bandits’ shot me.

The rifle had been slotted with a glowing coin, and had a dull coin ejected. All of my observations hit me all at once. It made sense. They were called Chargers. That had been what the bandits had been discussing.

Their currency had an immediate practical use. Could they be recharged? They must, otherwise the metal settings would be a waste, unless it was necessary for exchanging the energy. Could I draw the energy out, I wondered.

I held the coin in hand, I focused on it, tried to feel anything other. But other than the glow, I could perceive no difference between a full and empty Charger.

But of course I would not just develop a supernatural sense. I might have greater eyesight, hearing, and olfaction, but I lack any new category of sense. Except for my Illusions. For the sake of thoroughness, I envisioned a Charger (easily with one directly before me), and I cast an Illusion.

“Illusion,” I whispered.

Unsure of what I was expecting, the spell was a bit of a letdown. The illusory Charger just sat there. It had no feeling to it, no weight.

But I knew that was incomplete, that my Illusions could do more than that. They should, at least.

Inspecting the markings on my right forearm, I examined the glyph representing Illusions. There was a fresh glyph branching off the first.

The glyph read: Touch.

I ought to be able to make the Illusion tangible at least.

I poked the Illusory Charger again. My finger passed straight through it.

Letting the Illusion drop, I thought about it.

The first Glyph, the major one, was for Illusions, and I had to whisper, or at the very least mouth the word to activate the spell. Would the same apply to the sub-glyph Touch?

Focusing on the Charger once more, envisioning its weight, the chill of the metal, I whispered “Touch.”

Nothing. It failed to work.

Several more times I attempted this. I grew frustrated. Was I misinterpreting something? Had my ability to cast Illusions broken?

“Illusion.”

A Charger once more appeared, floating in the air before me.

It then occurred to me. Touch was a sub-glyph to Illusion. The Illusion had to come first. Of course, in hindsight, it made sense.

“Touch,” I said, envisioning the weight and feel of the Charger.

It dropped from the air and hit the ground with a dull thud.

That–that had potential. Mesmerized, I poked and prodded the coin, watching it slide along the ground. If I had not cast it, I would not have realized that it was a–

It popped, and a wave of fatigue washed over me.

Spirit: 44 (+1)

Mind: 54 (+1)

Illusion: Touch: 2/9 (+1)

That was too early! There should have been at least twenty seconds left on the Illusion. I needed to understand why.

A minute later, when my pool of spiritual energy had fully recharged, I created another Illusory Charger.

“Illusion.”

Immediately after, I added, Touch.”

The coin behaved as before, exactly similar to the original Charger.

I counted the seconds.

The Illusion lasted around twenty seconds. About half of what I should have gotten. Adding tangibility halves the duration, meaning that my pool of energy exhausts twice as quickly.

Fascinating. I wondered what other limits there were. It had easily become the most potent tool in my kit, and thieves relied upon knowing every inch of their kit.

But I had gotten derailed. Of the original charger, I could discern no difference between full and empty coins, other than the glow. Even with an Illusion, I found no difference. And without detecting the ‘energy’ surrounding the full Charger, I lacked a mechanism to extract it. If the energy is actually there in the first place.

I continued playing with my Illusions as I resumed going through every other item in my haul. I had spent a significant time on the Chargers, and there was still plenty more to get through.

And then I remembered, from the hundeors’ den, I still had a gun like device. The bandits slotted Chargers into their own guns. I remembered a slot on the gun-like device that I had requisitioned.

I needed to try this.

I went digging through the contents, brushing past the obsidian egg, also from the hundeor.

Distracted once more, I prodded the egg. It had glyphs decorating the side of it, in silver. It did not seem to be active or alive. It certainly was not trembling and about to hatch. But still, there was just so much I did not know.

Back to my hunch, I finally dug up the gun-like-device, much the same as I remembered it.

It was a mixture of bronze and dark wood, with dark metallic circuits engraved in the bronze. There was a trigger, and at the top of the gun, near where the hammer would have been, there was a slot about the same width as a Charger.

I picked up one of the spent Chargers and set it in, it fit perfectly, and slid most of the way in, with only a portion of the metal lip visible.

A switch had toggled up when I pushed the coin in, and experimenting with the switch, I found it was a fast eject for the Charger.

I wanted to try it out. No, I needed to try it out.

I pulled out a full Charger, and I had been just about to slot it in, when my brain caught up with my body.

I had no idea what this device would do.

I thought it would be safe, but I could not guarantee that. My hubris had already gotten me injured; I could not risk another mistake. Besides, even if the gun worked like I thought, it would still make noise, or a flash, or something noticeable.

I could not afford to be noticed, not while I could still potentially have hunters chasing me.

Thus, with a heavy heart, I put the Chargers and the perhaps-a-gun away, and I went back to the rest of the haul.

Thinking of weapons, I had come away with two daggers from the bandit’s encampment.

I did not recognize the metal, but they both held a better edge than my utility knife. They had sheathes, but came with no belt.

I slipped both daggers around my right thigh, on the same harness as my utility knife. They dangled and clinked and fit poorly; I worried they would hinder my movements. I ended up removing the daggers and putting them back into the keep pile.

Next, and this one I had been looking forward to since I had found it, I examined the magazine.

It was thin, and the pages had been varnished for protection. The covers were plain and brown, with some of that same strange script written across the front.

I ignored the script, trying hard not to look at it too closely. My head hurt enough as it was. I opened up to the first page.

It was an illustration of a woman in a tasteful dress with an umbrella over her back. The umbrella was laced and colored black with red highlights. The dress came up to her neck, and went down to her calves, where she wore slippers. The dress had plenty of volume, but cinched at the waist, more so than I would have expected. It dawned on me: she wore a corset.

“Incredible,” I breathed.

The woman was posing against a carriage, with strangely colored trees in the background.

The entire illustration was painted and embossed, and the level of detail was exquisite. Even her makeup was on point, with ruby red lips to match the umbrella.

I began flipping through the magazine, holding each thick page carefully with my fingertips. I had to handle the pages cautiously with my claws and fingernails. I did not want to tear such a treasure.

The magazine showed trees, vegetation other than lichen. Which meant it had to exist somewhere. This world was not completely covered in wastelands. And there was a society! Civilization… I had my suspicions from the bandits, but the magazine confirmed it. Somewhere out there, was civilization and a lush paradise.

Despite my wounds, I felt the beginnings of a twinge of hope.

I continued leafing through the magazine. The pages were full of women in tasteful dresses posing in forests or clean cities, dining at cafes or in one case watching some sort of performance.

There was even a woman in a veneer ballgown who was wearing a mask. That last one had probably been the most scandalous, which might have explained the mask wearing. But maybe not. There was much I had yet to learn.

I spent a long time looking through the magazine.

It was a treasure.

After I had my fill, I carefully put it away, and pulled out the only other item I had yet to investigate: a leather bound journal and a letter. I had set these aside until last, since I knew they would leave me with a pounding migraine.

But I needed to be fully literate, and any clues would help me going forward.

The letter first: It was a piece of yellowed paper folded in three. The paper felt thick, and the writing on one side of it was meticulous. As I read through, or tried to, my eyes kept glancing off the individual sigils.

Some of them I recognized, and from those I inferred more. I remembered how their language sounded, and I tried to guess which phonetic went where.

It was a mess.

My headache returned. A pressure continued to build up, between my ears, behind my eyes, the back of my head. I had done this before, I could do it again. The pain was lessened by the fact that I already knew the language, or so I hoped. It seemed to match up. Mostly. This should have been impossible! I lacked a rosetta stone. But still, it was working. My left arm burned and ached, and I forced myself to continue.

Mind: 56 (+2)

Blessings: Rank (1/9)

Body: 47 (+4)

Mind: 56 (+3)

Spirit: 44 (+1)

Talents:

Athleticism (3/9):

Climbing (8/9)

Stealth (7/9)

Trackless Tracks (3/9)

Closed (7/9) (+2)

Spells:

Illusion I (1/9)

Touch (2/9) (+1)

Closed

Closed

Gifts:

Obsession (2/9)

Closed (0/9)

Closed (0/9)