Completed Cold-blood meets No-Blood (Kuv)

[Licearsvansan]

Soon after leaving Svan had stripped off his clothes and lept into the sea. Cool water surrounded him as he let his body change. Soon the Svan the human was gone and in his place was a large brown rattle snake. With a twist of its tail the snake the snake propelled its body skyward and Svan could feel the sudden rush of the cool sea breee as he lifted his head above the waves. heat pits flared as Svan scanned the beach, but due to Kuv's dead body Svan couldn't pick up any strong heat signatures from such a far distance. Luckkily that wasn't the only amplified sense Svan had in his arsenal. A snake's sense of smell could rival a bloodhound, and while Svan wasn't quite that skilled, he had no problem picking up the scent of a dead man walking. Petch, The scent of slowly rotting flesh was so strong that Svan could go to sleep right now and still be able to track Kuvs every step when he woke up.

Despite not needing to follow immediately Svan decided that it was best to keep a close eye on Kuv until he struck out against the sailors. Where Kuv went, Svan followed not too far behind. When Kuv came to a stop and began to wait Svan grrew tense. Then he grew bored. At first he had thought that Kuv had either spotted him or was about to begin his plan but by the time several bells had passed Svan realized that the Nuit wasn't doing anything soon. For the first two bells The snake sat patiently for the Nuit to make a move, but after a while the Dhani grew hungry and so Svan left his watch to hunt some fish.

Even after Svan returned with what was likely the smallest tuna he had ever seen, Kuv still hadn't gone anywhere. The snake groaned in annoyance. Do something! Dhani were capable of sitting still for hours as they soaked up the sun rays but Svan wasn't sunbathing. He was waiting for something, and the tension was driving him mad. Eventually Svan realized that the Nuit wasn't going to do anything for a long while and Svan decided to take a nap. Like most snakes Svan needed very little sleep and it was unlikely that anything would happen in the next bell or so as Svan slept.

As he drifted off he considered all the things he had done today. In the past day he had sabotaged a boat, had lied relentlessly, made a man relive his daughter's death, tricked sailors into trying to kill an innocent man, and now he might just have convinced Kuv to kill the sailors he had tricked earlier. Svan was wrong, his mother wouldn't have been proud; she would have been esctatic. Perhaps the most chilling thing though was that Svan was somewhat proud. His greatest regret was not that he had done all these horrible things. It was that he hadn't meant to do them.

....

Several bells later when Svan awoke he found two things that bothered him. One was that the sun was just barely peaking over the horizon. And two, that Kuv was no longer in the spot he was sitting at earlier.

[Kuvarakh]

Dawn was approaching quickly and it was time to move. He wanted enough time to find where those three crewman were, and to wait for villagers to be up and around in sufficient numbers to prevent the crewman from getting away. And he needed to be in position to react quickly when the situation was right. He needed to be near the shore. He would get close enough that dropping to his hands and knees would allow him to peek up and scan the goings-on ashore. But when the time was right, he would be quickly up and ashore, pronouncing curses on the crewmen that had tried to kill him.

He needed the support of the villagers, so he'd have to announce their crime quickly, so they'd know why he had "come for them". It would be best to bring mention of their patron god Laviku into his tirade. He'd been fortunate enough to hear the name spoken clearly earlier, because otherwise, he'd still be saying "Lovo-something". He assumed Laviku was male, judging by the ending letter. Though there undoubtedly exceptions, it seemed to him that the gender pattern was that females claimed "I' and "A", and males took the rest. As a result, he felt it likely that 'Laviku' was a god rather than a goddess, judging by the 'ku' ending. 'Maybe I'll ask young Mr. Swanson who his god or goddess is and see if this rule holds true.'

The only deities he was reasonably familiar with were Akajia and Wysar, from his time spent in Riverfall, learning Tukant. He'd never had a chance to find out who the xenophobic Isur worshiped. It had taken an assault of hypnosis bordering on mind control over the course of several days to create enough distrust between his Isur captors to get away with nothing more than his life. He'd learned a fair bit about Zulrav and Semele ('oh good preachin' gods, there's an exception right there!') from his short time among the Drykas. He'd learned just enough about Rhysol while in Ravok to give him shivers, and the Celestials' monks had encouraged him to leave Nyka before he learned any more than their names.

Nope, Laviku was the one. As he waited, a barely connected thought teased him. With his name beginning with "Ku" and Laviku's ending with the same, he wondered if "varakh" meant anything in the local language, whether this was the 'Fratava' of the Svefra shipfolk, or some northern dialect of the Cyphrus 'Pavi'. Both seemed to lean heavily on hand gestures as well as spoken words. He hoped the literal translation of "Kuvarakh", if there was one, did not imply anything offensive towards Laviku.

The morning bloomed in full radiance by the time his musings reached this point and he saw the situation grow to near perfection. The three crewman were doing some repair work, shaving and fire-hardening a tree trunk for a new mast, or stitching up a sail. 'I wonder if that's the one they think I sabotaged' he thought bitterly, his determination waxing angrily. He looked himself over beneath the surface and found, to his grim satisfaction, that a good measure of seaweed had wound itself among the chains he still had wound loosely around him.

Oh yes, he would be the very visage of drowned retribution, cold, dead flesh, rising from the sea, dragging chains and seaweed behind him as he trudged inexorably, calling down doom and death, towards the perpetrators of his "demise". With that thought, he got to his feet, the water now at hip level, and took his first sloshing steps inland, his finger pointing at the crewmen, his voice raising in a moan. "Hear me, murderous crewman of the Svefra! Laviku sends me back to warn these people of your villainy. You took an innocent man to board and then slew him treacherously to silence him against your evil! I still wear the chains you bound him in as you cast him from the cliffs to sink into the sea!"

He was going to say something about 'Laviku's grace giving him this chance allow your atonement for this vile act', But the village had already erupted in pandemonium.

[Licearsvansan]

It started off like a scene from a horror story, and then quickly went down from there.

Svan arrived just in time to see the collective gasps from Kuv's audience as he rose from the water like a drowned ghoul. Had Svan not know what was really going on he too might have responded like the rest of the citizens. Svan sat, or rather drifted, as he watched the horrible mess unfold. At first everything seemed fine. Kuv began his rant about how he had been wronged and while the people all seemed to be listening intently, Svan could see quiet clearly by their rising temperatures and expressions that they were merely frozen with fear. At the first pause in Kuv's speech the loosely held control he had over the terrified populace evaporated and everything dissolved into chaos. If Svan had hands he would have gave the Nuit a round of applause. Svan's mother might be proud of Svan for what he had done, but Rhysol himself would of been proud of this.

It was pure unadulterated chaos And Svan was loving every moment of it. People were tripping over one another in a mad rush to escape the "water demon" and innocent men, woman and children were crushed underfoot as the people ran out in all directions. The crew men above all else seemed to be most terrified. One had jumped overboard in sheer terror, while another was crouched face first o the ground praying for mercy. The their crewman, the biggest of course, was taking a different course of action. As with many dumb see fairing folk the solution to all problems could be found through violence, and this man seemed keen on solving this problem post haste. With thermal sense Svan watched as the man first ran from the scene to travel back around and up to a higher part of the boat. He held a flashing saber high into the air and with a voice like thunder over cobblestone he roared. The act didn't go unnoticed and soon all of those who hadn't already fled were watching this man, and before long the entire populace seemed rallied behind a single simple goal. Kill the Nuit.

Still drifting silently in the waters beside the boat Svan watched the tragedy unfolding before him. Oh Goddess, if only I had a nice piece of mutton to enjoy this with. The snake was smiling like a fool and spun himself in a happy circle as he watched the people preparing to butcher the Nuit. He could intervene and cause a little more chaos, but that would be too boring. He wanted to see just how smart this Kuvarakh was. At least until things got out of hand.

Considering how far things had already gotten, one could only imagine what Svan considered "out of hand".

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh was momentarily stunned by the panic. Hadn't he clearly said his dire foretoken of doom only applied to the treacherous Svefra crewman? Sudden, sick realization hit him that perhaps common was not the prevalent language here and only the word "Svefra" had really gotten through to the mass of villagers.

"Oh shyke!"

The main culprit was now brandishing one of those heavy cutlasses and leaping to the waterline with athletic grace. Kuvarakh could see that, though a fair number of the villagers were more concerned about tracking down panicked children and securing their belongings before they were trampled to ruin, most were congregating to form a back-up lynch mob behind the sword-wielding crewman.

'Alright, then...Plan B' Kuvarakh thought, as he now backpedaled slowly, steadily, beckoning his enemy to come to him as he got a different grip on the chains hung around him. He had not wanted to truly kill any of his attackers, but he had unintentionally escalated it beyond the point of having any choice.

On an inspiration, he bellowed as the crewman closed on him, "COME THEN, LET US FACE LAVIKU'S JUDGEMENT TOGETHER!" as he took a few last retreating steps. As the crewman swung the cutlass, Kuvarakh swung the chains off their draped position on his shoulders. The blade was deflected, but still left a painful score along Kuvarakh's ribs. Kuvarakh then whipped the chains around the side of his enemy and stepped forward into him to give him reach to catch them as they came around the other side.

His lack of an arm for parrying, netted him a dagger in the side. The depth of the stab and the sharpness of the dagger actually made that wound less painful than the laceration from the sword. And Kuvarakh had long since gotten over a man's instinctive fear of injury to internal organs. He already knew that what he was going for was the taking of his enemy's body. So damage to his current one was able to be compartmentalized, as he had done many times before, and largely ignored. The heavy chains greatly hindered the Svefra crewman's sword arm and he was only able to hack ineffectually as Kuvarakh pulled and spun with all his might to spill them both into the water.

For the next chime, all Kuvarakh's efforts were to push with his feet and drive them into deeper water. The crewman, for his part, still hadn't made the connection that his Nuit enemy must not need to breathe, and took one deep breath, thinking lack of air would affect Kuvarakh as much as himself. Kuvarakh had, of course, found this to be his saving grace ANY time he was set upon by foes while near water.

As he propelled the struggle into greater depths, The crewman seemed to realize that he was no longer able to do much damage to his Nuit foe. The water friction reduced all his strokes, both with fist and sword, to negligible levels, and the dagger was unable to be retracted for additional blows, due to the hindrance of the chain.

Kuvarakh had only two things to focus on. His arms were completely engaged in holding the chain in place and his feet were only tasked to gaining deeper water. All at once, the crewman realized his peril. The chain was sinking them to a depth now well over anything he could raise his head to, and his foe was not nearly damaged or panicked enough to relinquish his advantage. He tried to thrash himself free, he tried to pry Kuvarakh's hand free, he tried to push to the surface. Kuvarakh easily defeated all these efforts. A few chimes later, everything grew deathly calm.

Kuvarkh now pushed to still greater depth, enough to stand on the bottom and not even come near the surface with his head. He then started to backtrack towards the inlet where the men had thrown him from the cliff in the first place. He stayed near the rock wall that began to form as the coastal trail rose up the hill. He found a small, hidden shelf of stone that low tide would expose during the late morning and waited. He stripped the clothes from the dead crewman and slipped him onto the shelf when there was only a few inches of water still covering it.

A few chimes later, the tide receded completely from it and Kuvarakh used the blood leaking from the dagger wound to draw the glyphs of transference onto the man's body. He looped the chain over an outcropping of rock and slipped it under the target body's arms, and across his chest. He then climbed atop him and began the ritual drain of ichor. By the time he'd made the jump, the tide was back and he simply let himself hang limply by the chain for the rest of the day and into the night as he recovered the initial degree of orientation into this new body. His old body had washed away into the Suvan Sea, by the time he had gained enough awareness to even notice such a thing.

[Licearsvansan]

As the Nuit slowly backed towards the water, the snake made sure to back away. At first he thought that the man was simply going to jump into the water and hide until the village calmed down, but Svan's original suspicion was proven wrong when Kuv stood his ground and wrapped the chains that bound him around his attacker. As the pair fell into the water Svan dived to avoid being hit. The Sailor was fighting brutally against the Nuit, but Svan could already see how hopeless his efforts were. The man was slowly drowning and Kuv was the one drowning him. The Dhani smiled as he circled the pair like a hungry shark. Through the brille over his eye the snake could watch every moment as the man's life drained from his body with grim satisfaction. He had already forgotten that this man had only died because of his actions. There was blood in the water, and Svan was eager to have some.

Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as he had hoped. Instead of leaving the man to rot, Kuv too the now limp body with him and left to switch bodies his his new victim. Luckily Svan didn't stay disappointed for long as a second brave soul lept into the water to see what had happened. Svan didn't get it. hadn't they seen the blood in the water? No sane person would leap into blood soaked water in hopes of learning what had caused it.

Then it dawned on Svan that the water hadn't turned red, but white instead. The Nuit apparently didn't bleed the same as an ordinary human and the people above likely assumed that the sailor had one due to the cloudy white trail Kuv was leaving behind. As a third person jumped into the water Svan decided that something had to be done. With a swish of his tail he propelled himself low into the water. There he waited for a moment until a few more people got the idea to follow the white trail, and onces a satisfactory number of people were submerged Svan struck. First he brushed by a few people with his scaly body and was rewarded by a few worried murmurs. Then he went to the man just behind the leader of this "rescue party" and bit him hard on the leg. The man shrieked and warm red blood leak up to the surface. The thrashing sounds of feet kicking randomly at the water told Svan that the others had noticed. The Dhani released the man, swam off, and circled back for another go. This time he chose someone closer to the middle. He was a large man tough looking man and if he panicked he would definitely loosen the nerve of the others. However, the real key to this was that there was a obviously frightened woman clinging desperately to him. Few men could rival the blood curdling shriek of a terrified woman. Svan twisted his body hard as he rushed forward. His teeth slammed into the man and before the poor fool had time to react Svan was already pulling him down into the water. Apperently seeing the toughest looking guy in the party go down in 2 seconds flat was traumatizing because before the blood from the man's bite even reached the surface EVERYONE was screaming. Svan was bludgeoned a few times by hurried feet as the entire group swam for shore, sped on by the rapidly increasing amount of human blood in the water. Even from underwater Svan could hear screams of sea monsters and cries of terror about Laviku's wrath. Satisfied, Svan let the man escape with his life and swam off in the direction of Kuv. Nobody dared to follow him this time.

As Svan reached the spot where Kuv was preforming his ritual, Svan smiled and slithered up to a vantage point so that he might spy on the Nuit. The Dhani watched the entire ceremony unfold and had to admit that it was rather disturbing. After some time had passed Svan got the feeling that the ritual was over and so he slithered down to get a better view of what had happened. From what he could tell, Kuv had transferred himself into the other body, but the other body had yet to make any movements so Svan wasn't sure if the Nuit was out cold or simply resting. As the tide came back the origionally body was washed away. Realizing that Kuv no longer needed it, Svan did the only logical thing he could think of. He ate it. There was a foul after taste to it. However, since most of the ickor was drained, and the body had not entirely decayed Svan was able to enjoy the meal to some degree. Fat and happy, Svan slithered up to the Nuits new unmoving body and smiled. He flicked his tongue once to recognize this body's scent and the slithered off to find some place to rest and digest his new meal. Upon finding a small alcove among the rocks, Svan was able to reflect on the days deeds. He wasn't proud of what he had done, but he had survived and for now that was all that mattered. Well, that and this.

The snake opened his mouth and placed the necklace he had stolen from Kuv's body on the ground.

[Kuvarakh]

The tide went out enough for Kuvarakh to get his feet, his new feet, under him and get moving to a place where he wouldn't be waterlogged again. Such inundation could cause a quicker breakdown of the body he'd acquired. It would be several days before he'd achieve enough coordination to appear normal, and even then he would have to avoid any real effort for days after that.

But he had no idea if he could even go back to the village. He'd achieved a semblance of victory by killing his primary persecutor, but what he'd wanted was to draw attention to his accusation and let the villagers decide the punishment. And now he felt it was likely he'd be banished. He could go back in the body of the crewman and pretend to be him, but that wouldn't last long. The first time he was expected to show the kind of knowledge an experienced seaman would have, he'd fall right on his face. But if he came back as the Nuit, what would they think?

He'd tried to imply that the "judgement of Laviku" was taking place between them, but he wasn't sure if the crowd had even heard, let alone believed him. If he came back to the village, it would have to be with full disclosure of his possession. He needed someone to vouch for him that the crewmen had tried to murder him, but there was no chance the other two would fess up any time soon. There was Lyseer, but would he want to drag himself into it? Kuvarakh doubted it.

His new legs were getting tired already, his arms as well, due the near hands-and-knees level of travel he was forced to resort to along the rocky slope slanting straight into the drink. He saw a small open space leading back into a niche in the bank. Then he saw the necklace! 'How did that get here?' he wondered.

Then he saw the snake, and many things fell into place. It looked just like the one that had caught a small portion of his attention as he had wrestled with the crewman. There had been brief pursuit by the crowd after he'd submerged himself and his foe. Then there had been some screaming that had reached him through the muffling water, and some glimpses of the snake. He'd thought at first it was the crewman himself in panic, but looking back, there had been women's voices, screaming about "sea monsters"...and the snake... and the crowd had abandoned their quarry.

But the snake had remained nearby, even following along as Kuvarakh took the body to where he'd performed the body jumping ritual. Now, here it was again, still nearby, the necklace oddly present. Lyseer had seemed somewhat evasive about what he knew. His behavior had been kind of odd. Giving partial accounts of "his side" of events that he'd supposedly not really been involved in, then clamming up completely, then apologizing. Kuvarakh got the sense he was keeping secrets but not feeling good about it.

Also, the sense of smell was not something that took days to develop to sub-normal levels of performance for a Nuit. It was up to snuff right away. And there was a definite hint of "Old Kuvarakh" wafting up from the resting reptile. Kuvarakh knew he didn't need to worry about the thing's venom, so he picked up the necklace and sat down to wait for the snake to come out of his lethargic state. He suspected Lyseer was the snake. He would ask him if he was a Kelvic, and thank him for recovering the necklace. Perhaps then they would discuss what comes next for both of them.

OOC - continues here.

[Radiant]

Licearsvansan :

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Observation	+5 XP
Running	+2 XP
Socialization	+3 XP
Rhetoric	+4 XP
Acting	+4 XP
Stealth	+2 XP
Swimming	+3 XP

Lores

Lore Earned

Having a seasick

Location: The Suvan Sea

Karma: What goes around, comes around

Svan the Fail Detective

Kuvarakh: Strange Nuit

A VERY awkward situation

Nuits are immune to most poisons and diseases

Nuits don't need to ear, drink, or breath

Lying through my teeth

He's still alive!... figuratively

I wish I have more arms to face-slap myself

And more arms to give Kuv an applause

Attacking a group of "rescuers"

Loots

Kuvarakh :

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Observation	+5 XP
Acting	+3 XP
Socialization	+4 XP
Rhetoric	+4 XP
Intimidation	+3 XP
Acrobatics	+1 XP
Escape Artist	+1 XP
Hypnotism	+1 XP
Weapon: Heavy Chain	+1 XP
Drawing	+1 XP

Lores

Lore Earned

Hiding my true nature

Being the undead black sheep

Unwittingly saving someone's life

Licearsvansan: Strange Dhani

I'm Adonnie(?)

A VERY awkward situation

Lyseerswanson

Chained and Drowned

I want... revenge!

Laviku's Vengeance(?)

Taking you down with me!

A new body

Loots

Necklace

Notes :

A good thread, gentlemen! The awkward situations, the amusing revenge method, and just the random acts Svan do brought some chuckles to me.

I would love to see Kuv reactions when Svan told him that he's not a Kelvic. Kelvics can't have reptile forms after all.

Oh yeah, Kuv, the Lore says Nuits have no blood so you should change mentioning "blood" from wounds to "Ichor" in the future. This time, I will consider Kuv using his ichor to draw the runes as it's technically his "blood".

My radiance is not bright enough?

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, beam me a PM and we can work it out.