Completed In-ferrous-tation

[Kuvarakh]

65th day of Winter, 512

Kuvarakh returned to Alchemmia Alchae, digging and slipping through a variety of icy barriers, after spending the morning at the Temple of Ionu. They had been less enthused about his offer of the enhanced sculpture than he had thought they'd be. He had to admit, though, it hadn't occurred to him that the mysterious and intriguing black feathers that the founders of The Order of Transcendence had received from Ionu were not necessarily a recognized symbol of the deity. Not as far as worship was concerned anyway.

The Priests were very much appreciative of the depth and smoky translucency of the sleek black carving, seeming to be crafted of a single block of onyx. Also they greatly enjoyed the reaction that touching it brought. The racing of colorful orbs to the surface to spin and coalesce there, whirling in arcing, flashing patterns of blended and glowing colors, which sunk back into the depths when the touch was released.

But they didn't see the gesture as a symbol of the faith, likely to spread the reverence to Ionu, so much as "advertising" for The Order of Transcendence. Kuvarakh had to concede their point. They acknowledged that the draw of such a remarkable work of art could not hurt attendance, but felt it may ultimately detract from the faith, as long as the symbol stood in representation of anything other than the Temple.

Kuvarakh had hoped they would see it as "tribute" from The Order and that this would be reason enough to set it on display, but he understood their hesitancy. They were right, his initial intent had been for the carving to be a symbol of The Order, and placing one at the temple might very well end up detracting from its recognition in regards to both institutions.

They respected the generous offer though, and did not want to decline out of hand. They promised to take the matter up with a quorum of church elders before giving a final answer. They promised to send a messenger to the shop when they had reached a decision. They all shook hands in earnest goodwill and Kuvarakh took his leave. He was not too down-hearted about it. After all, if The Order decided to keep a branch in Alvadas, one could rightly sit out front of the facility here as well as wherever they decided to move to.

As he approached the shop front, he heard a loud crash from inside and Wanda's voice crying in alarm. He charged inside, unsure of what sort of mayhem was developing. As he turned to move around the counter's end, the flooring broke away beneath him and he tumbled to the floor. There was an odd tapping sound and he caught just an uncertain glimpse of something that MAY have been an insect of some sort.

It disappeared into a tiny bored tunnel in the stone floor. As he looked closer he saw a number of like tunnels honeycombing the broken part of the floor where the tile had broken under him. "Uldr's teeth! What the petch is this?" he swore.

"Kuvarakh! Thank the gods you're back." Wanda cried from the other room. "We've got a big problem." Just then, a shelf fell from the stone wall on the back of the acceleration chamber. Kuvarakh could see numerous tiny bored holes in the stone where it had been secured. And again, an indeterminate number of little critters scattered back into them. "We've got bugs."

[Kuvarakh]

Mouth agape, Kuvarakh blinked and tweaked his ears as if he'd misheard. "Bugs? This is STONE! What kind of Vayt-cursed bugs eat stone?" He stared around in disbelief at the scattered rubble from bits of wall and floor.

"None that I know of, but there are plenty that eat wood, and we DO get those types here." Wanda called from the other room, where she was sweeping up gravelly remains of a section of floor. "And before you repeat that 'this is stone", She growled, doing a fair imitation of his voice, "I'd like to remind you that you just finished several transmutations combining elements of both wood and stone. It's entirely possible that the lingering effects of such activations could have possibly created wood-eating bugs that have transformed along WITH the wood into bugs with an affinity for what USED to BE wood."

"What...Are you saying this is MY fault?" There was a pause from the back room. "Okay, don't answer that." he grunted with a pout to his voice. "But come on, this couldn't be the result of just that one last job making the feather symbols."

Wanda strolled out from the back, a grin on her face, rock dust in her hair. "No, probably not. We do a lot of things where wood and stone properties are combined for better surfaces and stability. No slivers, No crumbling." She heaved a heavy sigh as she looked around. "I guess it finally caught up to us."

"Well, all we have to do is wait for the half-life duration to run its course." Kuvarakh offered sarcastically. "There ought to be a few buildings left by then."

Wanda glared at him, "Sure...All the wooden ones." she snarled with just a hint of a grin.

[Kuvarakh]

"So you're thinking that there's been an ongoing accumulation of djed effects building up, and maybe that last set of transmutations was the catalyst that triggered them?" Kuvarakh asked, gazing around the shop at the slowly increasing signs of active infestation.

"Yes, I'm thinking that's a possibility, but I can hardly claim to have proof." Wanda answered as she stepped back into the back room. She paused, tilting her head, listening. "Do you hear that? That clicking sound? It's really fast paced and moving through the walls. Damn it! It's making me dizzy trying to follow it."

Honestly, Kuvarakh HAD heard it, but hadn't paid much attention to it. He had assumed it was tiny bits of stone hitting the floor from various areas. But now that he listened more closely, there was an odd metallic quality to it. Another shelf creaked and sagged abruptly, one side partially pulling out of the wall. He hurried over and started grabbing the various jars, sample displays and notepads from it before it fell.

Which it did a few chimes later, clattering amid a cloud of stone dust. There was the sound of clicking as a pair of bugs squirmed to right themselves after the fall. They skittered towards a spot in a corner that was already a well-established access point for them. Kuvarakh rushed to head them off, noting that the clicking sounded like building nails being tapped on the floor. One of the bugs suddenly took to the air. The other, apparently in a less-developed pre-alate state, was still grounded in its haste.

He slammed his heel down on the critter, noting with some dismay that he could actually feel the bulk of the tiny body through his shoe. He lifted his foot and stared at the bug, still squirming to reach the wall. He reached down to pick it up and was rewarded with a pinch and a slew of tiny cuts as the thing spread and twisted its carapace between his fingertips, and jabbed a pair of legs under his fingernail.

Kuvarakh recoiled in shock, dropping the bug, which immediately scooted into the break in the wall. "Holy Shyke! They're metal!"

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh returned to the guildhouse and asked one of the earth reimancy trainees to accompany him. He explained the situation and informed her that he wanted her to simply sense the stone for movements of the bugs inside to find their concentrations.

She was able to do this, but frequently caused the bored tunnels to close up, aggravating the little metallic pests. More than once, she, Kuvarakh and Wanda ended up bolting from the building ahead of a small swarm of what amounted to tiny power drills. The pursuit was short-lived as the bugs returned quickly to continue aerating the building.

"Look," the reimancer began, "I'm not positive about this, but I grew up in an area where wood-borers were a yearly problem, and I never saw them spread out so sparsely and evenly throughout a structure. They always found a spot they liked and collected there. Sure, they eventually got around to everything, but they always established a nest first."

"What are you saying," Wanda asked, trying to stay calm in the face of professional calamity. "that they're still looking for a spot they like? What if they don't find it? They've already weakened the walls and made the floor unstable. Do you mean they may start spreading to other buildings?" her anxiety grew as she spoke. The reimancer's uncertain look and hesitancy to answer only added to the stress. "Myri's mercy! I'll be ruined. I'll be liable for the whole city!" Her hands flew to her mouth and tears started in her eyes.

"Okay, calm down, calm down." Kuvarakh let Wanda protest the uselessness of the remark as he flowed a bubble of djed to her mind, reinforcing her knowledge of past difficulties overcome. Adding the anticipation of looking back on this later and laughing. Soon enough, Wanda was apologizing for her outburst and seemed resolved to take the fight back to the bugs.

The reimancer was willing to continue her assessment of the infestation's pattern of growth after a short rest, and started on walls she had not yet sensed. Again, the reaction of the bugs sent the three people ducking outside, but now the woman was sure. "They ARE searching for something. There is some way in which this stone is not good enough. Don't worry about damage to the structure. There's nowhere NEAR the kind of tunneling it would take to make the building collapse. The pattern is very spread out and equal. What I don't understand is where they came from.

"What do you mean? Weren't they here already?" Wanda asked, her eyes flicking to Kuvarakh, who began to develop a serious knot in his stomach.

Just then, there was the tinkling of shattering glass. They all turned, expecting to see another fallen shelf. But it was only a single goblet, one that had sat on Wanda's desk the entire time Kuvarakh had worked there. She used it to hold small desktop items. Wanda went to clean it up, as Kuvarakh stared, curious as top what made it fall over. The floor had not been undermined enough to make the desk tilt.

His distraction caused him to miss much of what the reimancer was saying. But his attention was pulled back, kicking and screaming, at her words '...something made of wood, with some sort of element of stone in it. Have you done any work with such a material here lately?'

He stammered for an answer briefly until Wanda strode back in, carrying part of the goblet. It was the base, with a small portion of the stem. The look on her face expressed both assurance of what had happened, and sympathy for Kuvarakh's obligation to correct it. She handed him the piece.

"Look at the end of the stem. It's not just broken, it's been chewed through. This was still on the desk. It was the upper part of the goblet that hit the floor." Her eyes were fixed on Kuvarakh, who mouthed silent babbling.

"I don't understand." the reimancer ventured, "There would have had to be something wooden in this building that had the wood-borers in it. But why would they change to eating stone and glass? And why wouldn't the stone and glass items here now be good enough?"

Kuvarakh sagged for a moment, "Because they are after something that melds all three elements...My symbol carving." he suddenly sat up straight. Were he not a Nuit, his face would have blanched. "Myri's Balls! The Temple!"

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh bolted from the shop turning towards the temple...Only to realize that the temple might be in any direction. He made for the end of the street and its inherent better visibility. There were blocks of ice closing off various avenues of travel, as well as views of scenery. The shining orbs of color, Ionu's Stars, were floating about, inviting distraction.

But Kuvarakh's eyes were all for the temple. His imagination filling in where reality was left open. His anxiety heightened at visions of walls cracking, bits of masonry falling in raining clouds of dust, filled his mind. Clattering and crunching sounds as worshipers stepped on crumbled ceiling tiles fallen randomly from the depredations of insatiable iron mandibles. Welts running up and down the wall panels as armies of stone-devouring insects ravaged the sanctum of Alvadas' patron deity.

Dread liability hastened his step as he tripped and stumbled his way through fields of ice and frosty mud to find the temple before it was reduced to a throne of rubble. He could imagine divine eyes, narrowed in fury, glaring down at him. He couldn't fail. He Couldn't!

Voices compounded the apprehension. He could almost hear the accusing crowds of evacuated followers, standing in anguished rage around the remains of the ruined temple. All eyes turning to him, 'There he is! That's him! The man that let the plague of destroying insects into The Temple of Ionu! Heretic! Devil! Apostate! There He Is! That's Him!'

"There he is, That's him." a voice carried the scenario out of his anguished imagination, back into reality. He turned in crippling anticipation to set his guilty eyes on two of the priests of the temple, driving the cart he had left there that morning. The glossy black carving still strapped down on the bed. Relief rolled over him like a wave. The priests hadn't brought the carving inside the temple after all!

One of the priests came towards him, waving behind himself to indicate the carving. "We thank you very much on behalf of the devoted of Ionu for your generous offer, but I'm afraid the council has decided to decline on the grounds that..." he began. Kuvarakh sagged in relieved gratitude, waving dismissively.

"I understand, believe me, no apology is necessary. You needn't explain. I was just on my way, anguishing over how to broach the subject of second-guessing my own offer. The temple is no place for a representative symbol of The order of Transcendence. It was vanity to begin with. But another matter has...uh...come up regarding the carving. have you...uh...by any chance...umm...seen..." Kuvarakh stuttered clumsily.

The priest eyed him keenly and reached inside his robes, removing a small jar. There was a tinkling tap in time to the movement of some tiny critter inside. "Perhaps you are also anguishing over how to broach the subject of...this?"

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh steepled his hands before his face and exhaled a massive "Whew!" Propriety returned in embarrassment as he saw the priest eying him with raised brows. "Forgive me, I was afraid the little monsters may have escaped into the temple. I only just discovered them, and their surprisingly destructive nature. I have been having visions of apocalypse the whole trip here."

The priest leaned back in an understanding guffaw. "No, no, son. Nothing so Valterian as that! The divinity of Ionu will survive the follies of men, however insidious! We found this little abomination desecrating the loose stones in the courtyard, not the idols of the Holy Pantheon!"

"So there have been no signs of any others?" Kuvarakh asked guardedly. "We've been hit hard at the shop, and were hoping to ply all our efforts there. But, of course, if the Temple were imperiled..." he let the statement hang with a grimace.

"No, just the one." the priest assured him. "But, yes, we wanted to get it out of the temple, just in case. I CAN tell you though, that there ARE more of the little beasties inside of the carving. In the quiet of the temple you can hear them...chewing"

"I can take over driving the cart if you need to return to the temple for anything. I think it best we get this back to the shop as quickly as may be. We're under a sort of self-induced quarantine, and ought to get all hazards under the same roof...before it caves in." he added with a grim chuckle.

The priest was only too happy to be relieved of the infested nest-carving. They said their goodbyes and hurried on foot back the way they came as Kuvarakh got in the driver's platform and shouted to the team in urgency.

It didn't occur to him that he had no real experience driving a team. His anxiety was such that he simply slapped leather to flank and assumed the team would respond. Perhaps his frame of mind was infectious. perhaps the team sensed the presence of some threat in the cart behind them and wanted to move ahead in an instinctive drive to gain separation.

At any rate, they arrived at the shop in short order. Just then, Wanda and the reimancer came rushing out, pursued briefly by a swarm of glowing red dots, buzzing angrily. Several of the dots settled on the door, which burst promptly into flame. The reimancer dove into the water, which hissed and steamed for a moment as bugs broke the surface. They quickly resurfaced, cooled and gray, to storm back into the shop.

"What in Dira's Halls was that?" Kuvarakh demanded, trying to calm the horses. "Were they on fire?"

"Your colleague thought she could kill them with some fire reimancy. Why didn't you tell me the damned things were metal?" Wanda whirled in desperation and rage. "She thought she could melt them, I guess. if I had known what kind of heat we were talking about, I'd have told her she was crazy! Now the stone is warped and cracked from heat as well as falling apart from being chewed!" Her outburst was punctuated by yet more crumbling and crashing of stonework inside the building. Wanda's face screwed up in tears and she fell into Kuvarakh's embrace, crying loudly.

"I'm sorry, I thought you'd told her." the reimancer said softly, eyes on the ground, her own lip trembling slightly. She took a deep breath, "Like I said, I can do whatever structural repairs need to be done to restore the building to virtually new condition. Please, don't worry about that. I can even pull new shelves if you like, though they'll be bare stone, not decorative wood or anything."

"We'll get to that." He put his hand beneath Wanda's chin and gently lifted it until their eyes met. "I think I've got a partial answer, so keep your hopes up. The priests brought back the carving and the bugs are nesting in it."

Wanda missed the point. "OH GREAT! We've got MORE bugs. Thank you Ku! I feel SO MUCH BETTER NOW!" Her hands fluttered randomly as she paced. her sarcasm stinging him.

"Calm down. You're not understanding. I think this is what the bugs inside the shop are looking for. We need to get this inside to get them all grouped together so we can deal with them all at once."

"And just how do you propose to deal with them? I mean, we've been having no great success so far. have you got some new idea we haven't tried?" Wanda's voice was equal parts skepticism and hope.

There was a pregnant pause. Kuvarakh looked back and forth between the two women. He hated to disappoint them with the truth. "Of course I do. Just give me a minute to work it out."

[Kuvarakh]

He went through to the transmutation chamber and grabbed the chains used to hoist heavy items into place. They hung from ceiling mounted tracks and moved on heavy rollers. He pulled them forward to the front room of the shop, as far as the counter just inside the door, where the ceiling tracks ended.

Wanda got the horses calm and backed the cart up to the door. They hooked the heavy leather straps to the reinforced eye loops at the ends of the chains. Together they rocked the carving one way and back the other way, crossing the straps and running them underneath to get a sturdy support cradle beneath the carving. Buzzing grew from inside the carving and they backed away until it quieted down.

Kuvarakh tapped the dowels out of the shelves and counter at the point where the doorway was, so the hanging carving could swing through. This was just a precaution, as, when the carving was lifted off the back of the cart, it was not that difficult to stop its swing as it plumbed its way to a stop below the end of the ceiling tracks.

Precaution or not, the counter section needed to be removed anyway so the heavy item could be run straight through the shop to the back room. They set out to do this, but when they got near the door between the two sections of the shop, a loud, dull crack sounded over their heads. All three yelled "LOOK OUT!" simultaneously as they dove to the side. The carving, chain, track section and iron brace all crashed to the floor, crunching a good sized crater and splitting the carving right down the middle.

Angry insects poured from the exposed hollow in the center of the carving, half of them airborne. Kuvarakh shoved Wanda through the door ahead of him as bugs ate through his robe in seconds. If he had taken the time to breathe, his expression of screaming would have been backed up by sound as he charged across the greensward to dive headlong into the water that had been their escape every time. The only sound was Wanda cursing as she dove in beside him and the wild neighing of the horses, the cart clattering loudly as it bounced behind them.

The attacking bugs buzzed and bubbled their way back to the surface to return to the nest, now open for any to see in the exposed center of the carving. The reimancer joined Kuvarakh and Wanda at the edge of the water and watched in dismay as the swarm seemed to 'melt' the stone around the doorjamb. The wooden door and slats fell with a clatter to the walkway out front.

It became clear as they watched that the numbers were growing steadily. At first, this fueled their despair, thinking it was the result of hatched eggs and some sort of accelerated growth mutation. They speculated on whether this infestation may have been partly created by the djed storm the previous spring, but set aside the subject in lieu of more important issues, like what the petch to do about them.

They had made jokes about it, but now they were grimly realizing that the possibility of a city-wide threat was no longer an irrational fear. But they began to notice a peak in numbers and realized the scouting bugs that had been eating their way around the shop had joined the nest. This not only accounted for the seeming increase, but also gave hope that the entire mass might be gathering within the broken cavity of the carving.

"We've GOT to find out. And it has to be me that does it." he held up his hand to stop Wanda's protest. "I can get a new body if it comes to it, you guys can't. AND this was MY project to begin with, it's only fair that I resolve it."

"Don't be a damned hero, Ku! It's not your fault for the djed storm. Wait until someone can inform the city government of the danger. They have better resources than we do." Wanda was pleading, but Kuvarakh could see the undercurrent of hesitation to the very idea she was proposing.

"And get your license revoked? No way. All I'm going to do is go see if the bugs are all together now. I'm not going to provoke them, believe me! They took a good section of skin off my back last time! We need to see what the situation is, and if there appears to be a resolution. If we can possibly sort this out without involving the authorities, that's what we want."

Wanda looked a last plea, but had no words to accompany it. "Be careful, Ku. I think those miserable bugs could eat you alive in seconds. If they can chew through stone, they can chew through you." was the best she could manage.

Ku moved slowly to the door and peered in. There was the ambient buzz of a thousand insects but none to be seen. As he turned the corner of the counter, he could see the carving. It was virtually crawling with them, every square inch squirming with activity. He kept his back to the wall as he made his way past. He spent several minutes with his ears pressed to the walls, listening for the telltale clicking sound of tiny metal legs, but heard none. he made his way around the circumference of both rooms in about twenty chimes, always listening behind him for any sound to warn him of aggression.

There was one time he thought he heard it starting and he seized in fear, freezing in place, dreading an attack. The sound persisted, but did not grow in volume, only anger. He realized it was coming from the open stairway down to the storeroom. He carefully made his way to the door at the top and looked down. He saw movement in a corner.

He let his eyes adjust and slowly perceived what was making the noise. An idea began to form in his mind as he realized what he was looking at. 'Of course!' he thought, a grin of triumph daring to crawl across his face. Last season they had done that work for Sir Vendrick. Part of their profits had been a large number of hard-to-come-by magnets.

There were three of the bugs stuck to one of the magnets...

[Kuvarakh]

He left the trio of bugs stuck writhing there as he grabbed another of the magnets and found a piece of iron. He climbed the stairs back up to the activation room. He went to the cabinet and got out the toolbox, using the wrench to loosen the bolts securing the transmutation ring to the floor. It was wider than his arm span so he hefted one side up and very slowly rolled it through the door to the room where the broken carving was.

As he approached the swarming bug nest, he gauged where center would be as he worked his hold on the ring to get it to roll to a point that it was on the ground on the far side of the carving, while he was standing, fully extended, to keep his side off the floor. He froze as the bug nest seemed to agitate for a few seconds, but as it calmed, he slowly knelt to bring his side to the ground.

Again, he stayed in position until he was sure that there was no aggression being triggered by his presence. He was afraid Wanda and the reimancer might be approaching to see if he was alright, so he moved slowly to the door and waved to them, instructing them both to stay outside.

"Give me twenty chimes," he called out to them, "then go ahead and inform the city authorities if I don't come out." Wanda started to approach, but the reimancer grabbed her and held her back. "You can't help me, Wanda. Stay there. I shouldn't really need more than fifteen. I'm just being conservative." As he returned inside he thought grimly to himself, 'In twenty chimes, I'll either be successful, or dead. And if I'm dead, it'll be in a lot less than twenty chimes.'

He returned to the ring, slowly placing a magnet in one fount and the piece of iron in another. He stepped back and was about to take his place at the keystone, but, on a hunch, he went back to the storeroom and got several squares of flat metal, like the kind used to pound into armor after being imbued with some special quality. He set them in a spread on the floor behind where his position would be at the keystone of the alchemy ring.

He crossed the metal squares, taking care not to upset their positions or make any noticeable sound, and took his place at the keystone. The bugs either took no notice of him, or were curious enough about what he was up to to wait and see. He cleared his mind of the memory from earlier, of the bugs eating through his robes and into his back in seconds, and pricked his finger.

He gave one last thought to Wanda, wondering if she truly was his wife of old, reborn. Perhaps if he survived, he'd ask her if she'd like immortality as a Nuit. Perhaps he'd kill himself when she died, and see if Lhex would reward his sacrifice with a new life with her. Perhaps he was about to die right now.

He put his thumb to the keystone and began the transmutation.

[Kuvarakh]

The acceleration built quickly, as Kuvarakh was specifically trying to do. He was not calm enough to slide into the meditative state where he envisioned the whirlpool representation of the djed stream, though. This was partly due to his anxiety over the situation needing to be resolved NOW. But more, it was because of the background noise that strained his concentration.

He could hear them, easily hundreds, probably thousands, of insects swarming inside the boundary of the accelerated djed stream. The alchemy ring encircled the nest. The normal buzzing hum was transformed into an iron whine by the delicate metal wings beating in fury.

Kuvarakh could not truly say why the bugs did not try to cross the stream. In fact, he did not even know if there truly WAS anything preventing them. He only knew by the sound that they had rushed out of the nest and were now hovering, just feet away...waiting. Perhaps, having been created BY djed forced mutation, they had instinctive reservations about crossing another such stream.

He started to tire, and was forced to acknowledge that he'd pretty much peaked the effect he was expecting to achieve. Even as he tried to prepare himself to make his escape from the swarm, his concentration faltered. A combination of distraction from the noise and fear of what it forewarned brought his activation to a premature release.

He rolled back to reach the metal plates arrayed behind him, but the bugs were on him like a fur coat. The buzzing noise became horribly muffled by the very flesh on his bones as the bugs started to eat their way into his face and torso. His last truly worthwhile thought was to NOT allow himself to open his mouth to scream.

He rolled in desperate madness and agony, feeling the connection to his arm grow strangely numb. His foot slid oddly as he tried to propel himself to roll across more of the metal plates. All too slowly, his strategy began to work in his favor as the now magnetized bugs adhered to the metal, squirming in steel buzzing rage.

Too many of the bugs, however, were inside his skin, and the magnetic effect was pinning him to the plates through the thin layers of flesh the bugs had eaten their way into. Ragged clumps of shredded flesh lay pinned to the plates he had already rolled across, twitching as the bugs tried in vain to get free. His vision had somehow lost depth and he couldn't seem to get his arm beneath him for support, or get a decent push-off with his feet.

And he was cold, so very cold. it felt as if the metal itself were touching the inside of his torso, making him shiver weakly. It was impossible to name any part of his body that did not shriek in tearing pain. And shrieking there was, his ears echoed with it. He wondered if he had forgotten to keep his mouth closed, and he began not to care too terribly. He had seen the evidence that his plan had worked. The bugs were magnetized, sticking to the metal plates and to each other in writhing buzzing clumps. easy enough to scoop up and drown in the water. Metal they may be, but they still needed to breathe. He felt that he could die now, satisfied that he had corrected his mistake.

The shrieking continued and Kuvarakh tried to get his legs under him, but he couldn't even get off his back, something was holding him down. The high pitched noise took on a familiar tone, a familiar structure, his name. his name was being screamed. He felt flesh tear in another surge of agony as he forced himself upright, leaving a slab of his back behind. He heard more newly exposed bugs, stuck to the metal plates beneath him, buzzing in iron fury.

Buzzing, blending with the screaming, it was an incoherent storm of horrified wailing. His vision was curiously flat but he saw, to his surprise and dismay, Wanda, her face white, trembling, her hands to her face, her eyes wide as saucers, staring and screaming in horror.

"Kuvarakh! Oh My Gods! Your Face! Your Arm! Oh Gods NOOO! What Do I DO? Oh Gods Help HELP!" She went on and on as the other woman, the reimancer girl shook her. "We have to get these bugs out of here NOW! Or...that..." she stared in similar sickened shock, "...will be for nothing!"

Kuvarakh understood only very little, he was so dizzy, so weak. He felt cold, as though his body cavity was exposed to the winter elements. He wondered how much ichor he had lost, how much was fatal. He would need a new body. That was for sure. He heard the sounds of the two women dealing with dragging the bug covered sheets of metal outside and using shovels...Shovels!...to scoop up large clumps of bugs. He chuckled at the mundane simplicity of the tool of choice.

All he could remember was something about a bunch of 'bodies...Alea...the Kelvic...raven...Campbello...The Order...need...bodies...Alea Campbello.' He repeated this litany until he was no longer even aware he was doing it...

OOC continues Here.

[Whimsy]

Kuvarakh

Experience	Lore
+1 Hypnotism	The Sculpture Rejected by the Temple of Ionu
+3 Observation	Metallic Bug Infestation
+1 Negotiation	Accidentally Transmuting the Properties of Bugs
+4 Leadership	Single-handedly Causing an Infestation
+4 Alchemy	The Magnetic Properties of the Bugs
	The Benefits of Being Able to Replace One's Body
	Wanda: Past Wife, Reborn?
	Bugs: Eating Through One's Flesh
	Drowning Magnetic Bugs

Comments
Kuv will need a new body immediately. I see you've started a new thread for that purpose! I really liked this. You have a way of writing the technical elements of Alchemy without sacrificing style and tone. PM me if you have any questions or concerns.

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