Post by lamashtu on May 7, 2018 3:08:37 GMT -5
Power Level: 18,004
Modifiers: Medium Weights (-50% PL, +50% gains)
Thread Power Level: 9,002
「 Thread Theme 」
Modifiers: Medium Weights (-50% PL, +50% gains)
Thread Power Level: 9,002
「 Thread Theme 」
It started, as most of Lamashtu's plans do, with a bad day and an idea.
The scarred Earthling had woken up in her makeshift camp, only to find that the creature she'd encountered just days before with Hasenya, had decided that it had had enough of her company. Ordinarily, this wouldn't have been an issue. She would just pack up and track it down, since it was a dangerous creature and she felt somewhat obligated to ensure it didn't go killing more people. However, that, coupled with the stress from her last encounter with the taller Elemi woman, meant she was once again alone, a fact that definitely did not lend itself well to a stable mental state.
She couldn't help but dwell on it, left with only her thoughts and doubts for company once again. She hadn't realized exactly how much she'd grown to value Hasenya's companionship until she was bereft of it. It would be nice, for once, to have a friend and ally who she knew would never leave her. She knew that such a desire was ultimately unreasonable; after all, how could she ask a person, with their own hopes and dreams, to set them aside and follow her? She was far from leader material; indeed, she had no interest in having true followers, not like the recent Queen of Earth.
Which led her mind to an unusual thought: Excalibur, Hasenya's sword. A sentient spirit, contained within the shell of a bladed weapon. Was that an avenue she could pursue? With all of her knowledge of shamanism and heathen faiths, was the ability to create a living weapon among her skills?
The seed of that idea took root in the Earthling's mind, and grew. And blossomed. She could start by creating the proper vessel, a blade with enough life in it's forging that it would be easier for it to accept having spirits bound to it. She could mimic the methods used by ancient witchcraft practitioners to forge their ritual athames, but use blood and bone for quenching and tempering. The resulting steel, though crude, should be strong enough to hold an edge as well as able to channel ki and house spirits.
Sighing, the human started nibbling on one of her last pieces of saurian jerky to assuage the hunger gnawing at her gut. Such an undertaking, to quench and temper a blade in blood and bone, would take an enormous amount of both. Ideally, it would be human, but she wanted to avoid any of the unfortunate connotations that such a decision would bring. So where could she find such a huge amount of blood and bone nearby?
...
"I am an idiot." The scarred woman said aloud, staring at the meat in her hand as if seeing it for the first time. Okay, that's one question solved. Leaving her with one more.
What manner of spirit would she bind to the blade?
Despite her desire for companionship, she wasn't sure she was willing to force a friendly spirit to be captured within a cage of sharpened steel. So, an enemy, then. A fellow Earthling? A murderer, or convict perhaps? An animal spirit, some predator from the wilds?
It was then that her train of thought connected to another, and provided her with a far more viscerally satisfying idea. She practically dove for her pack, digging and rooting until she managed to find what she sought: a ragged, dog-eared tome of leather and vellum, upon which the title, in bold serif font read: CLAVICULA SALOMONIS REGIS. A copy of the Lesser Key of Solomon the King; specifically, the Ars Theurgia Goetia. A book, written by an ancient scholar, on the art of demon-summoning. She'd experimented with it in the past, attempting to harness lesser demons and learn more about them through interrogation, but none of the ones she'd summoned had provided her with anything she could use. Come to find out, Western Demons and Eastern Demons don't exactly speak to each other on a regular basis. She'd ended up having to kill them in order to banish them.
Now, however, she had a new idea. A new purpose for these lesser creatures of Hell. But first, she decided, the sword.
It hadn't taken her long to find another Paozusaurus; the first one had literally stumbled across her from it's nest, and so following it's tracks led her right to it's mate. No eggs or younglings to be seen, so Lamashtu didn't feel even the slightest bit of guilt when she ended it's life. She was as humane as possible about it, a single spear-thrust through the eye into the brain. She dragged it by the tail back to her camp, where she'd cobbled together some shoddy but airtight barrels of wood and bark to hold the materials.
Picking out a particularly sturdy looking tree, she used it to lash the body of the creature and heft it above those barrels. With a single, well-placed knifestroke, the blood of the fallen beast started quite literally pouring forth, into the barrels. Gathering the materials, this part, was the easy part. Next came separating the iron in the blood from the rest of it. It would take the careful application of ki-fueled heat, burning out the impurities and remaining liquid.
It was a grueling process, one that left her drained and sweating, but when all was said and done she had about three kilos of literal red-hot, glowing blood-iron. Using her hands, carefully shielded from the near-liquid metal using another careful channeling of ki, she folded and beat the lump of unshaped iron into a blade-shape, as long as she is tall and nearly a foot wide. No delicate weapon, this, but the tool of a butcher. Uncivilized. Perfect for her.
She then took the proto-blade and scorched it, tempering it in a colossal fire built upon the bones of the beast she'd slain, the carbon from it's skeleton mixing with the blood-iron and making a crude steel. Again and again, she folded and tempered and hammered the blade with her ki-sheathed fists, before quenching it in the final barrel of blood with a wicked-sounding hiss. When it was finally cool enough to touch without the protective measures she'd taken, she couldn't help but smile. This would do nicely, yes. And now, onto the next step.
Nowhere near as difficult, the process of calling forth demons used a carefully sketched circle of runes and glyphs, all etched into the earth using the blackened tip of one bone and a mix of blood and ash. After she'd drawn and closed the initial circle, the one of summoning, she started drawing several other protective barriers around it, meant to shield her as well as catch and draw the spirits of anything slain within them into a vessel of her choosing. In this case, the now-gleaming blood-steel sword perched on an altar she'd carved in haste. Not everything needed to be perfect; just the written portions.
The first demon she called forth was one of wrath and hate, and one she knew rather intimately. It had been the first she'd called forth, and after killing him, she'd accidentally called him forth twice more in her attempts. Always, whispered urgings of slaughter and painful vengeance against those who had wronged her, trying to lure her into making a contract with him. Trying to get her to damn herself, in order to avenge her family.
Ironic, then, that this demon would be the first step towards exacting that vengeance after all. She took a sick sort of pleasure in breaking his neck, since using her spear could potentially affect the circle's properties, since it was partially man-made. With an ear-rending screech of pain and anger, the demon's spirit attempted to disperse, only to be forcefully drawn into the blade nearby. It glowed a sick sort of orange-red, pulsing as if wounded, before diminishing again.
She placed a hand on the sword, brow furrowed. Something wasn't right.
"It feels... happy. And hungry. This isn't the spirit I bound to it. It's... something else." Still, she was too far into this to back down now. The scarred witch-warrior resumed the ritual, calling forth yet another demon. And another. And another. Soon, she'd summoned, killed, and bound a full thirteen lesser demon souls to the blade, only to have them consumed and assimilated by this new, growing gestalt consciousness within it. The blade now glowed a perpetual red, the shade of blood, when she placed her hand on it's hilt. She stared at her new weapon in awe, able to lift it in a single hand despite it's massive weight. She could feel the spirit within, still so ravenous despite feeding on so many souls. She wasn't sure whether to be afraid, or excited. She'd settle on both, for now.
"What are you?" She whispered, eyes wide, to the blade. She didn't expect to receive an answer at all, let alone the one she got, echoing within her mind as clear as a bell.
「𝔾ℝ𝔸𝕄.」
Total Thread WC: 1,527
Requested Reward: PL