>>6199575>truly.>>6199155>Nat100 on Sanction, Nat1 on Resistance. -12 on all checks until healedYour teeth graze against your arm’s skin, and then bite into it, cutting through with a streak of pain. Soralisa whimpers, but you shut it behind your awareness. This needs to be done and the pain grounds you. To the moment, to what you need to do — like finding Willow and slapping some <span class="mu-i">sense</span> in that faithless head of hers! — and to the request you once again push to the heavens.
You stumble inside your inner world, but this time it’s like standing atop a rock in the middle of a stormy sea, the painted colours of your essence washed over, chaotic, pulled sideways in broad strokes, colours fusing with each other like through a haze. And yet that <span class="mu-i">Presence</span> remains, right above you, the Sun-Birther, who turns towards you at you call, connecting through heavens and souls to reach her, to be stricken by it like a thunderbolt smiting a tree.
When you open your eyes again, you are on the floor. Once again.
You cough, taking in a deep breath — the air is still foul, but there is light, a golden, wavering light.
“Argia… why? I could have done so.”
You have to suck in air to reply. Your lungs feel like there’s sandpaper chafing them from the inside, but at least you can… you can see again.
Blood drips off your wound, bright against your skin, falling next to you in a burning puddle. The glow shimmers like golden dust inside the crimson liquid, then it lights up in candle flame.
It’s burning with a soothing, gentle light — but it has taken a lot out of you. Perhaps a punishment for your hastiness. Perhaps your body is truly reaching its limit — it feels like heat is spreading throughout your entire self, even soothingly licking at the remains of the wound in your chest, the one you sustained in the Well.
No part of your body was made to withstand the essence of the Sun-Birther.
[cont.]
