The rocks shifted as, sowhere outside their prison of stone, one of the remaining Flat-Horned Chargers crashed against them. Again.
Beside Triss, Yerin let out another groan of pain; his right leg resembled little more than a pulped ss, and was only becoming worse with every movent of the stones that pinned it. His breath ca in ragged and pained gasps, his eyes wide and unseeing. The others werent much better, injured and dazed by the collapse. From the sounds of scraping and clawing near the back, soone must have been frantically digging. From the sounds of muttered cursing and pained grunts, they must have been failing in the attempt.
Triss knew what that was like.
One hand traced the Totem around her neck as the stones around them - both prison and protection - shook again. The other hand propped up her spear, maneuvered as best she could in the cramped confines to aim in the direction of the threat.
Triss couldnt decide which was worse; remaining trapped in her prison, or a sudden and altogether brief mont of freedom. When the stones rocked again, she tried to fight down her panic again.
This ti, even the calming sensation of the Little Guardians Totem wasnt enough.
Not anymore.
Terror flooded her senses.
Please she whispered, If the stories are real, please save us. Please find us, Little Guardian.
Despite everything, she wanted to live.
===
[TERROR/PANIC/DESPERATION]
Emotions flooded through the link to my [Little Guardians Totem], and I dropped into my mind-nest. There was sothing terribly wrong - sothing far worse than the need and fear and sadness that I had received from my tiny Coreless. Those emotions were powerful, but they werent pressing.
Not like this.
I followed the thought-hiss to its source, letting Tiamats habitual attempt at dominance bounce off of in my focus. I hissed in frustration when I found it.
It was outside of the many-nest.
That made things more difficult; I couldnt cross the black-water on my own. Even the thought of attempting to swim across the dangerous waters made my instincts blare in alarm. One of my Coreless would have to take .
Again, I simred in my frustration. Sowhere out there, one of the Great Cores Coreless was in danger.
I was its Champion; I was their Champion, and the Great Cores Champion could not be seen to fail. I had only just begun to bring the Coreless under the light of the Great Core; their faith could still be broken.
I needed to know more, if I was going to save the frightened Coreless.
I sunk the fangs of my mind into the Totems connection, hoping it would be enough. I had tried this a few tis before, curious to know what my tiny Coreless were up to, and had noticed that greater emotions were more likely to carry faint hints of what the Totems bearer was seeing. A blur of images flashed through my mind, similar to the way that Tiamat had shown images of her origins, but harder to make out.
Murky.
It would have to be enough.
I flared a beam of light straight upwards, flashing it so quickly that it didnt exist for more than the blink of an eye. I needed to grab the Coreless attention, but I couldnt afford to spend more of my reservoirs for it than that.
They stopped what they were doing, turning their attention to with faint hints of alarm and confusion filtering through the Totems that they carried. At the very least, the Totems would make things a little easier. Id just have to show them what was going on until I noticed the correct response.
I pulled at the light around , thankful that my reservoirs had already been relatively full. There might not be much ti, I knew.
The clearest portion of the image I had received ca first; one of my Totems, the fingers of a Coreless clasped around it while an almost imperceptible glow filtered through the gaps.
Whats going on? One of the Coreless made a few noises; I ignored it, not bothering to do more than check on the emotion that filtered through the Totem in his hand. Confusion. I checked the others. They were the sa.
I kept going.
The rest of her body ford. It hadnt been one of my tiny Coreless like I expected. It was a warrior, though weaker than my original Coreless. Her ore-flesh skin was a dull gray, without the mana that the more powerful warriors of the Coreless infused into their skins. Her weapon, though, held a glow at its tip. I didnt recognize her.
It didnt matter. She was mine, now. She was the Great Cores.
She would be saved.
I cared less for the others, the wounded warriors that I had seen scattered around her. They were not ours. Not yet, anyway.
The Coreless around made noises again, jabbering at each other heatedly.
Is that one of the Totems in her hand?
Does anybody -
Is this one of its visions?
I checked the Totems again. Still not the reactions that I needed. I kept going.
The reservoirs within my scale-flesh were beginning to run low. I reached out and ripped away the light and heat from a nearby fla, letting its spot on the wall go dim. Cold.
I reached out for another, feeling my scale-flesh begin to burn with the strain.
With a flex of [Illusion Spark], I released most of what I had gathered. Another Coreless appeared beside the first, a leg crushed under fallen stone. I pulled at another torch, and the nest grew darker. Another Coreless appeared, scrabbling at a stone in a desperate attempt to escape. His fingertips dripped red. After a mont of frantic attempts, his image froze. I couldnt keep such a complicated and large illusion in motion.
I checked on my Totems, devouring another torch. With the way that my reservoirs hissed and burned with the effort of crafting the illusion, I was feeling more than strained. The upkeep on the illusion alone was tearing through my reserves. If there hadnt been so much nearby light to consu, I would have probably been forced to push so trait points into [Illusion Spark] and hope that did the trick.
Instead, I swallowed more light, dropping the nest into darkness. Only my illusion, the glow of ore-flesh, and the soft light of the Totems remained.
Captain Wren, do you have any-
What is this supposed to be? When is this supposed to be?
The stones expanded, transforming from a few to many, turning into a wall that rocked itself occasionally, dust drifting down through the cracks where a few began to shatter. They froze a mont later, and I focused on sothing new.
The corpse of a bad-thing appeared, one that I didnt recognize. It was a bulky thing, a giant mass of powerful flesh topped with a blunt, yet still dangerous-looking horn. A few of the Coreless breathed in sharply. A quick check of their Totems revealed that they were feeling concerned. Alard by what they saw.
Good, but it still wasnt enough. They were still confused. I needed to see sothing else mixed with those emotions. Understanding - a sign that they recognized what they saw. Resolve - a sign that they would act on it.
From the size of those stones, I knew that I wouldnt be able to save the bearer of my Totem alone. From the distance of the connection, I wouldnt even be able to reach them before the bad-things that I had heard slamming against the walls brought them crashing down. It wasnt like the problems of the tiny Coreless within the many-nest, able to be solved with an encouraging hiss or a colorful illusion.
I wouldnt be able to save my Coreless. Not alone.
Again, I hissed in frustration. Why couldnt they just understand ?
The Coreless argued among themselves; the confusion and frustration that radiated through the totems made that clear, the overwhelming noise quickly drowning out my frustrated hiss.
I had let them see everything, and still they did not act. They did not understand. I had nothing more to show them. I hissed again, more frustrated with our lack of communication than ever. I did not understand them. They did not understand . That was all there was to it.
I was going to fail. One of my Coreless was going to die.
I thought back to what I had seen, transferred to through the [Little Guardians Totem]. The things that I understood: the panic, the terror, the desperation. The wounded, the endangered, the trapped. The crash and clamor of bad-things against the stones that kept them safe and kept them prisoner.
I thought about what I didnt: the noises that my Coreless kept repeating over and over, a faint hint of conflicting hope and despair underlying them.
I hissed loudly, amplifying the sound far above the noise of the Coreless with [Sound Shaping].
They fell silent, totems filled with confused/alard/worried/curious.
Then, I hissed again; quietly, carefully. I let most of my illusion fall away, unable to sustain the light or focus that it required. Only two pieces remained: a [Little Guardians Totem], a hand clasped around it, and the body of my Coreless as she looked down at the Totem.
I could barely hear the droning hiss that spilled from my own throat, beginning to twist into sothing unrecognizable where it reached the illusions own mouth. The mouth began to move.
Pleeeeeaasssssse it said. That didnt sound right. I focused more, trying to ignore the increasing pounding of my head-scales as I twisted the constant hiss through [Sound Shaping]. It didnt seem like [Sound Shaping] was ant for sothing as delicate as this. It took too much concentration, required too much willpower.
It wasnt like the extre blasts of sound that tore at my throat-flesh; there, the problem was that I forced my throat-flesh to withstand far more damage than it could handle. This was different.
It was a pounding in my head-scales, a blurring in my vision, a panic in my thoughts that told one thing: [Sound Shaping] was not made to do sothing so deft, so careful. It was force and power, not delicacy and precision.
Using it this way hurt; I did it anyway.
If the stories are real, please save us. Please find us, Little Guardian.
I didnt know what the sounds ant, and I couldnt even be sure that I copied them correctly. Actually, I knew that I didnt. The noise stretched out oddly, in a way that the original didnt, warping in places and changing entirely in others.
I had to hope that it would be enough.
I looked at my totems as the Coreless erupted into senseless noise.
[confusion/worry/concern]
It didnt work.
Then, just as I gave up hope, one of the remaining lights in the room shifted. The-female-who-was-not-Needle began to move. Her glowing skin of ore-flesh outlined her figure as she reached down to run a finger along a Totem that hadnt yet been touched.
Her brow furrowed in thought, and I stretched my mind towards her Totem as she raised her other hand. The jabbering Coreless fell silent.
[understanding/determination/urgency]
I think I understand, she hissed to the others. Its happening now.
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