Nine Billion Names

[Spiderheart]

Ah, mimics. Pathetic creatures, infinitely varied and yet totally devoid of imagination. Both the mimics and any other travelers will owe them thanks for clearing out this infestation. Beaten Dog lets her adhesive pads recede and drops from the ceiling – but never hits the floor. Instead, it billows out into a grey cloud, his mask the only part of them that retains his original form. She twists like an eel through the fray, selecting a target that's already fixated on one of the others before briefly flashing back into corporeality – a mere moment, but long enough to drag their claws through the sorry creature's flesh. In the brief moments when the Dog returns to physicality, scraps of mantra fly from it like spittle from a berserker's lips – "Let not the –" "that we might –" "Ahriman, who holds –"

[Investing 1 mutation point in claws and 4 in Incorporeal Shift. Speed 8, initiative 11, combat pool 12.]

 

[Grey]

A mimic previously disguised as an armchair lumbers into a vaguely humanoid shape and lashes out at the misty form of Beaten Dog with one clawed hand - which burns as the wispy essence ignites from the harm. Dog slashes blind a row of eyes sprouting from the limb and mimic keens in rage.

Meanwhile, a large bed extrudes four legs and a blanket of lashing tendrils, advancing on Garutik from the rear, the serrated appendages lashing out to try and drag him into it's gaping maw.

At the door, Imzada is accosted by a pair of identical coat-rack Mimics, their spindly arms reaching out for her with muderous intent.

From further back into the 'room', such as it is, a queen mimic rises to her feet. She's easily identifiable, shaking off cushions that had been placed on her - a baroque treasure chest with arms and legs, filled with glittering coins.
Except the coins, of course, are larval mimics, their tiny jaws gnashing. She seems to have decided Patrjulf is the most delicious morsel and is closing the gap with heavy, clumsy steps.

 

[EbonChevalier]

Garutik let out an appreciative chirp at his companion movements then noticed the tendrils from the mimic bed reaching for him. He places his hand against his face and sighs. "Uuuuuuuhg, to be cursed with such popularity! Oh, well I might as well enjoy a dance with my eager fan!" Garutik's feet and hips move to a silent beat. "Come! Dance with me!" He moves to dodge the tendrils of the mimic.
(Garutik activates Scintillating Samba Form and dodges!)

 

[EbonChevalier]

The wine he drank earlier might've affected his dancing and not in a good way. His usual quick dainty feet seem more sluggish. His eye's
narrow "Time to get a bit serious."

 

[Spiderheart]

Ethereality is a lovely defensive asset, but it's getting in the way of what needs to happen here – namely, the separation of this mimic and its vital essence. Beaten Dog decides to take a much more aggressive approach. It flows entirely into the armchair's gaping maw, down past the teeth into whatever passes for the creature's gullet – before resolidifying, her skin now covered in mouths. This is a nasty little trick she picked up off one of their brother-monks, a Dance of the Hours practitioner: 'Moth Devours Wheel.'

(Mouths are a reflavoring of claws.)

 

[EbonChevalier]

I manic mocking smile spreads across his face and he rakes the side of the bed mimic as it attacks him! Mirthful chirps spring from his mouth as his claws dig into the bed. "You'll have to be faster than that if you want to dance with me...." As his claws rend the flesh of the mimic he spins into a pirouette and poses. Reason (Attack Unarmed)

 

[Zeth]

Pacing toward the two mimics with terrible deliberation, she prepared to catapult one of the mimics with the sweep of the Unmaker. However, despite the appearance of vested purpose, the action was made without a thought. Rather it was an impulsive reaction to the situation - an ingrained muscle memory of a sort. Once the most hydraulic of actions become ingrained to the point consciousness becomes unnecessary - she would know that she made it there.

The bliss!

However such things take time and as Imzada moved with the clanking of gears, wreathed in black fumes and glistening bronze, two mimics attacked her first deciding that being violently reformed was not the way to go. First of the creatures was too slow, baroque behemoth side-stepping its claws. The other capitalized on the opportunity but its claws and fangs rebounded from her plating with a clink.

Being so close together naturally meant they should be reformed together. With a two-handed sweep and the mighty shriek of protesting gears, she went for one of the creatures, capitalizing on the momentum of the Unmaker by swinging it around and gyrating herself around, bringing the weapon down on the other Mimic.


[Assuming they are 3ft apart or less, Imzada uses her 'Unstoppable Whirlwind' on one and than on the other creatures. With Dexterity 4 she can attack 4 times, but I have only 3 dies left. At first, I intended to use 2 out of 3 dies, but I will use the third dice as another 'Unstoppable Whirlwind' only if one of these two Mimics survive.]
[The third die exploded, rolling again]
[A 1. T-thanks RNG Gods.]

 

[Grey]

The Armchair Mimic keens in fury and pain as Dog devours it from within, blood pouring from its mouth and fresh holes torn in its flesh.

Meanwhile, Garutik severs a tentacle from the hungry bed mimic, which shivers and shrieks more in anger than hurt.

Imzada's hammer snaps one mimic clean in half, green-black blood spattering her form and the wall - and the howling head of her hammer carries on to crush the other mimic against the wall.

Spoiler

New round!
Beaten Dog
Patrjulf
Garutik
Imzada
Mimics.

Bed mimic and queen mimic remain.
Dog can either finish eating the mimic as their first action, or explode messily from it like a natal xenomorph - I leave tha to Spiderheart's impeccable instincts.

 

[Spiderheart]

Even as the mimic bleeds out, a hundred hungry tongues burst from its mouth, collecting the creature's fluids. Then, for a moment, it stops – and resumes moving with a haste and precision that couldn't be expected of either mimic or chair. Its eyelids close in a brief blink, and when they reopen, it's Beaten Dog's eyes staring out.

Wearing its victim's skin as armor and twisting his body to fit snugly in her new husk, the protean demon scuttles across the floor, opening both their own mouth and their husk's. Two sets of jagged teeth should do more damage than one. She sets its sights on the queen mimic, lurching towards it with the same abandon the mimics use in their predation.

His recklessness is a sham, designed to bait the creature into recklessness of its own. She projects the mimic-mouth they wear out further than her own, letting the husk take the brunt of any counterattack. His trick of devouring its victim from the inside won't work here; the queen is full of young, who could bite back. A more precise assault is necessary.

(Committing two dice to an attack; holding the rest in reserve.)

 

[Grey]

Garutik tears the bed-mimic to shreds with a succession of savage kicks while Patrjulf slaughters his way toward the queen.

Between the remaining three of you, the mimics are butchered in short order. The queen gives up only token resistence to Patrjulf's onslaught, and as if he takes the appelation personally he incinerates all the larva in a burst of radiance.

And as the blood cools on the floor, the Dark outside withdraws.

Then there were three.

Patrjulf spits and rests his hands on his pommels in contemplation.
"Pathetic," he declares, and steps outside to glare at the horizon.

 

[Spiderheart]

Beaten Dog takes a few minutes to pick through the ashes in hopes of finding a surviving larva; mimics are sad little creatures, but potentially useful. "Pathetic indeed," she responds, ripping their way out of its chair-flesh armor. "Predators, with all of nature's assets – concealment, claws, teeth, the low cunning of beasts... and they threw it all away because they couldn't recognize their place." Scorn expressed, ashes picked over, and – if applicable – mimic pocketed, he rises and turns to face the emergent Hellsun. "We might as well have battled actual furniture."

"At least now I know my guards are worthy of the title." She adjusts the lump of cushion-like hide that still rests on its head, turning it into a rather fetching headdress. "Worse comes to worst, I can simply climb inside one of you and ride out the danger. Don't worry," they add amicably. "It's not nearly as messy a process when I'm not trying to kill my host."

 

[Grey]

A wriggling mimic larva with golden skin bites ineffectually at Dog's grasping digits before giving up and curling back into the shape of a coin from some fallen mortal empire.

 

[Zeth]

Pulverising the second mimic, Imzada shook the great hammer, removing any excess gore remaining on weapon's face. Her own turned to Lightbringer as he pierced his way through the queen. The subsequent radiance forced Imzada's oculars to close shut but even blinded, Breaker was aware of the skill displayed in front of her. In the aftermath, she looked behind Patrjulf at the wall stained with green-black splash, a reminder of her own overwhelming use of force - if a lack in grace. She cannot do anything different to mimics if she could, yet she imagined that her companions probably could.

On the way out, Imzada hefted the great hammer upon her shoulder, escaping steam that trailed her in the aftermath of the fight attempting to vaporize the ichor from the burnished surface of her armoured form.

The words and actions of her companions almost made her think and as she witnessed Dog's creativity, Patrjulf's martial grace and Peacock's ferocious clawing, she was reminded of the many materials she encountered in her aeonic post at the anvil. It took her sanity to realise that the most contradicting of properties created the toughest of alloys.

Swaying on her long legs, Imzada stomped at Dog's side. As an answer to its proposal, she spoke; the shrieking metal and bass-booms from somewhere deep inside of the demon engine rendering her vocalisation too crude for any distinguishable nuance. That is if the forceful demon even distinguished between a threat and a genuine proposition:

"I will be a host like no other but leave the Scroll-case behind." at that, she turned to the demon and with the grinding of gears opened her lower jaw. The noise of the blast furnace giving way to the increasing heat radiating from the white-hot maw, the visible tunnel-throat lined with light blue veins - no doubt a remnant of the ghostcrystal she swallowed-assimilated earlier.

She extended her free hand down to Beaten Dog, bronze talons ready to help the demon climb up.

 

[Spiderheart]

"You forget, friend forgemaster, that I am of fire too... whatever aspect my flesh adopts." The prospective infiltrator takes Imzada's hand before flowing up the iron-wrought demon's arm, though not as a gas. The rusty iron of his mask spreads to encompass its body as their limbs become indistinguishable from hir trunk, the corroded ooze washing over the infant mimic and the scroll case. (The Dog's new pet should be fine; it has an air pocket, and she's intentionally made their chemistry quite nutritious.)

Beaten Dog floods Imzada's mouth before pouring itself into her inner workings, extending inconstant pseudopods to examine his shelter. "As fine a fortress as a Brute could ask for," she burbles. "Have you considered scaling yourself up – perhaps to palatial proportions? You already have half the materials to become a walking armory; all you need is a little extra scale." They resist the impulse to reorganize their host's inner workings, at least for the time being. That valve might be important.

 

[EbonChevalier]

With an elegant flourish Garutik removes the blood from his claws. With his feathers pristine and shining he walks outside with a whistle to join his companions. Seeing Imazda open up for beaten dog to dwell in he smiles. "Better you play host to a fortess of Iron than one such as I. You added weigh would throw off my balance!"

 

[Spiderheart]

"Your reasoning is backwards," Beaten Dog's voice retorts. It doesn't bother to emerge yet, still assessing her newfound residence. "If your balance can be so easily broken, it has not yet been tested enough. What would you do if you had to fight one such as me? You'd perish," he replies in answer to their own question. "For all your fluidity, you are rigid at your core if a mere addition of weight would be enough to wreck your balance."

Deep within the Breaker, the liquid Dog turns their attention inward, checking up on her new pet. Partly, they just wanted another companion for the journey, but after their group has orphaned the little creature – why, he has a responsibility now, does it not? Her new pet will grow large and strong, and one day, become a suitable host for any further travels Beaten Dog undertakes without a metal behemoth.

 

[EbonChevalier]

Garutik chirps in laughter. "It's true! I'm too partial too this form and weight to change it! Perhaps that too will change with this journey no?" A slightly musing look crosses his face." One wonders how much this pilgrimage will shape us."

 

[Zeth]

"This is known. Counting on your properties." was all she could add before her throat became preoccupied with the gelatinous ooze of Breaker's newest mechanism. Aiding it up with the proffered hand followed by a helpful shove, would see Imzada close her lower jaw and continue her swaying gait down the road.

Swallowing a demon characterised by a long-term possession would make anyone question their choices but Imzada seemed neither particulars fazed by this course of action nor hesitant at choosing to swallow Brute's sheer body volume. She might be biggest in the party, but as Dog looked down her throat, the interior of the Demon Engine was nowhere near as spacious as one might think, probably crammed by both machinery and materials.
Regardless, notions of comfort was hardly an issue for the malleable form of her newest tenant and possibly unknown to its host - so down the bored-out cylinder that was her throat did the Brute go.

The deeper it slid, several things about Imzada's interior were becoming increasingly more apparent. The ingress point was nowhere near as smooth, circular walls of the cylinder both pitted and stained as they were, no doubt by the intake of various materials as they tumbled their way down to the Breaker's burning core. Traces of the light-blue crystal Dog saw her swallow by the handful back at the Temple, still protruded in places.

With pseudopods feeling it way down the ferrous tunnel, more apparent than the iron taste and the swaying as Imzada moved, was the weight of another presence - alien to the demon of the Third Circle. Permeating the superstructure, saturating the billowing gasses from the burning core, was Imzada's sharp Essence.

Another thing that became quickly noticeable was, apart from the rising heat, was that Dog had to stretch a lot more to reach with its limbs the walls of her throat, in order to safely slide down.
Fortunately, the consistency of her exterior reflected in the interior as well and the radius of the tunnel was predictably consistent and stable. The fact was not self-apparent at first, but the constricting pressure around its body as Dog went down, became an obvious cause of the increasing discrepancy in scale. Pressure compressed the Brute so much that its risked falling into Imzada's burning core if he continued. However, before that could occur a slit appeared in the metal walls, opening with the clanking of gears and shrieking of some hidden mechanism, extracting a stepped spiral that snaked around the tunnel, losing its tail down into the light.

Using the stairs, Dog could safely climb down and inevitably lose scale if not mass, or climb back to the top.

Stomping by the Devourers side, she would uncharacteristically reply to the questing Count, first with a nod and then with words once her throat was no longer obstructed as much:

"Will help fine-tune your form too as we travel. Forging is an active and endless process."

 

[EbonChevalier]

Garutik smiled up at his Clockwork companion. "Your help is much appreciated! May hap this forging will make me a better lover to my Princess! But..... pray tell, what will this forging involve?"

 

[Grey]

Back to the endless road.

Rolling dunes of rust flank the path, studded with plastic and copper cacti, and the silence is broken only by distant cracks of gunfire and the cries of scrapvultures.

And then the arid waste gives way to the warm karst of the Fourth Circle, and the road becomes basalt pavement. Rivulets of bubbling lava cut the plain and the cracks in the karst host vibrant flowers, small creatures, and the bones of unwary travelers.

Ahead; Spit.
A town built around a vast iron spike, atop a huge beast - canid, crocodilian, angry. More spikes nail its limbs to the ground, chains wrap around it, and on the stained metal catwalks and chambers of the settlement Demons butcher the eternally regenerating flesh of the creature.
Pilgrims are not uncommon visitors, although many are drawn by the promise of the town's infamous barbeque moreso than the enlightening struggle of the City-Eater.

The ground rumbles with the muzzled roars of the monster.

 

[Zeth]

Peacock's talk of love confused her, his talk of desire resulting in a particularly scraping gear shift as the demon engine swayed in its relentless march. If the steady chugging of smoke coming out of her backs was anything to go by, she was either trying to answer in Imzada's characteristic, circumventing way or Beaten Dog is turning valves inside of her, that it was not supposed to.

"Upon completion, you will know what it entails." suddenly there was another screech of scraping metal, on its own nothing unusual for Imzada but this time the cacophony was accompanied by her head's complete revolution: "Work will begin when the deep well of midnight ripples thirteen! The essence of the nocturnal mechanisms demands blindness. White-hot and suffusing."

The screeching stopped as abruptly as it began, replaced with the usual cacophony of rickety mechanisms and an occasional release of pressurized steam. Garutnik had its answer.

Deep within the demon-engine, as one approached the center, pressure would compact everything down to the size of an imp's thumb. With this change in perspective, the suffocating interior would open up, with the blazing core at the center of a molten lake as the axis of this burnished furnace-world. An Infernal Machine in microcosm, Imzada's interior almost perfectly reflected the vast workshop-forges of the Sixth Circle.

Almost.

Amid the violent, deafening, and maddeningly precise synchronization of the myriad mechanisms, the impression of almost gestalt unity was marred by a sound underlying each and every movement. With every click of the cog, hiss of steam, and thunderous bang of the hammer, there was an after-echo, more a byproduct of the original sound itself as it resonated in the interior, rather than a qualitative trait of the source itself; frustratingly persistent echoes would clashed together, forming a melody of it own until the infernal acoustics that created them would expel it in a sonic boom, causing some jarring malfunction somewhere, a component jumping out of the whole and falling into the core - to be reforged. Like a tidal wave, error-causing crescendo would subside, washing every component of Imzada-engine with a consonant and vowel, the letters forming words and those, in turn, bursting with essence-resonance as the tidal wave retreated down into the core. It was emergence but from an error:

"Host like no other. Only Imzada is in the way of the final goal."

For a moment, a distinct type of heat would wash over the lower portions of the superstructure, Imzada's essence reorganizing the interior for the reforging to come. All who drank of this essence would dream of metal and aeonic madness.
A rickety pillar of scrap metal bubbled out of the molten lake that surrounded the blazing orb, creating a circular platform with swept stairs winding down to the base where, one sliding down from the throat-tunnel would land.

Circular platform suspended so above the molten lake would grow metal columns ending in a roof, in turn shaping a rotunda with a receptacle-seat at its center, which is surrounded in a semicircle with various viewing devices and levers. Among the instrumentation, there was even a valve.

"Give yourself to me and sense the outside."a boom, screech and a flat plop as something fell in the lake outside of the rotunda "Leave some essence in the receptacle-seat and upon the turn of the valve I'll take parts of you as gas outside."

Despite the never-ending frenzy of activity in her interior, Imzada's exterior remained unchanged. With her hammer swung over the shoulder, she accompanied Garutnik and Patrjulf to Spit.
The city's surroundings drew her attention, the cooper cacti and rust flakes catching the glint of her oculars. Soon.

The frequency of this dimension did not escape her, in many respects resonating with that of her own home in its forcefulness and vitality. Breaking to a halt in front of one of the metal catwalks leading onto the beast, Imzada looked for a way to climb directly onto the creature and hack some of the meat herself, the flesh of the giant beast catching her interest as a potential material if not a source of nourishment.

 

[Spiderheart]

Beaten Dog has never had an opportunity to explore the inner workings of a Breaker, so he takes its time with their descent. The steepness and slickness of the descent catch her off-guard, but are hardly a concern; their new texture is mildly adhesive, and it slips down Imzada's gullet at a measured, controlled pace. The essence that fills the body-cavern cuts at his own, and she allows it, leaving scrapings of the Sixth Circle in their being even as it deposits her own insubstance. The Breaker burns hot, he muses, but metal twists in heat even as it shatters in cold. How hot needs the fire be before even the anvil begins to melt? Or are Imzada's deformities a byproduct of her manufacture, rather than her environment?

The questions warrant further examination, but not now. It writhes her way into the chamber Imzada offers (another curiosity – did the metal mountain plan for guests at some point, or is this a standard feature of her kind?) The pressure surrounding them could prove injurious to Beaten Dog's new pet, but the fluid surrounding the baby mimic protects it from most of the weight – though it's now almost a quarter of the Brute's size. They add a mild soporific to their ooze-tissue; the creature rebelling down here could prove costly.

At Imzada's invitation, Beaten Dog rests their form in the receptacle and reaches out a tendril to turn the valve. When the path to the outside becomes apparent, it reduces a small portion of itself – just enough for a full sensory suite – to vapor, and extends outward. "Ah, Spit! It's been too long; the last time I was here, I'd not yet taken my vows. The beast is looking well." For all its wounds and welts, Spit's carrier does look well by Beaten Dog's standards. Though bound, it is in open revolt against its bindings, and in spite of its circumstances, it endures. Admirable, for a creature incapable of considered action. "It will be interesting to see this place through new eyes."

 

[Grey]

A narrow tower stands a few yards from the flank of the struggling Demon, and at the top a marvellous suspension bridge leads to the lowest platform on the creature's scaled belly.
It barely shivers with the beast's titantic spasms.

 

[EbonChevalier]

Garutik eye's the bound behemoth. "It's been quite something since I've had fresh meat....." He muses for a few seconds before clapping his hands and saying. "Companions! Let's do some harvesting! A good chunk of meat from that creature should last us a while!"

 

[Zeth]

Pressurized steam escaped the baroque statue as the wannabe-automaton cooled down, observing the environment around her for a viable path to the colossal creature's skin. Yet this time the coiling of fumes around her hid another presence, one distinctively different from her own.
Constantly in the process of evaporation that gave the baroque horror its bronzed sheen, the continually escaping gasses hid the sensory reach of the demon within her, yet unlike the gasses, this presence was arrested from escaping with the waste heat into the larger environment by thin strands of essence. It kept the Beaten Dog' uniformity within and without as a cohesive unit as long as Brute sat enthroned within the demon-engine.

Oculars rotated and head turned with intricate clockwork clicks as Imzada considered the words of her companions and the slim tower that offered the path to the beast's belly.
Considered. Suddenly, her actions struck her as incredibly deliberate and thoughtful - damning clues of her persona-mechanism emerging stronger, a presence that was both unwanted and counter-productive to what she was supposed to be. She considered that while her actions appeared as products of purposeful deliberation, they were anything but. A perfect mechanism completes its function because it was forged for it - there was no deliberation in the process. These disturbing findings provoked the petal-shuttering of her oculars to close, the act mimicking an introspective motion of those with flesh. Focused so, Imzada attempted to diagnose her current status.

As a byproduct of continual reforging in her efforts to create a more stable form for the changeling, so too did some of the brutes transformative qualities affect the endless error-rejection processes that continually give rise to her persona-construct. Now, she was almost shocked to find that the perpetual inner struggle within appeared to be less resource-intensive - as if the materials involved became more malleable the resulting consequence stabilizing as a more thoughtful and flexible product.
The petal-shuttered opened suddenly as Imzada realized that the vocalised sentiment of the colorful Unseen beside her echoed if not completely mirrored her own thoughts! The re-emerging ability for distinctive thought worried her.

"Flesh for your sustenance," metal croaked as she turned to move to the narrow tower "I'll keep the scale."

Once upon the suspension bridge, she would investigate the materials that made it so marvelous before reaching the belly of the beast. Imzada will observe the technique with which the butchers conducted their work, trying to locate the toughest area where scales or its hide have to be continually removed in order for them to reach the meat beneath. Such a tug between constant regeneration and removal was bound to make the beast's skin in that area incredibly durable and flexible.

"Beast is well? Does it get sick and die?" she caught on Brute's musing.
The manifested changes made the expected approach of the cascading errors far less disruptive to her internal superstructure as if the mechanisms involved in the process started adapting to the strain. To the Beaten Dog seated as she was in the station-rotunda, the resonance of the bubbling core nearby would prove a far more effective and quicker conveyor of her queries and thoughts. If not for Garutnik and Patrjulf, the vocalization of words would be quite unnecessary.