These Eldritch Hips – (Modbased)Litrpg

"Don’t make that deal kid." Jonas immediately interjected. "It’s way worse than whatever you might be thinking."

"it’s only worse because you made a deal with a sack of living refuse. i on the other appendage, am far kinder to those willing to broker with me. I also possess the exceedingly rare talent of having some decency."

"Keyword, some. Not a lot. Not even close to a lot. Which, kid, should be all you need to know to never want one of these curses. Seriously trust me." He said, gesturing to a mark that ran down his back. A thing of black shapes arranged into the image of a man by the seashore, spear in hand.

"But I don’t really have much of a choice, do I?"

"that depends on how much you like your odds playing into our dear Giant's hand. and i assure you, saying no is exactly what she would want. the exact sort of thing she would count on. so if i were you…"

Celia knew what it meant to be marked.

She had grown up knowing what happened to people born with marks or found with one. Enslavement and power. They became pawns of New glaive. They became pawns for gangs. But they also gained power. Enough to do impossible things, and change the very world around them. And just looking at Jonas, Celia could tell that it was the same way here.

He was a slave. If she accepted this, she would be a slave too. And that was a fate that was maybe worse than what she could bear.

"… No." she said, voice barely a whisper.

But the dragon heard it all the same. "no? no? do you know what i am girl? who i am? i have existed longer than the bloodline that preceded you. my voice has brought low the mightiest beasts this world has ever seen. i have whispered death to kingdoms. and few blades have ever touched me. and you deny my gift based off the words of a failure?"

Celia took a deep breath.

"I’m no one’s slave." She said, shaking. Her every instinct telling her to run as the dragon glared down at her. Blood screaming her certain death.

The dragon smiled.

"i am Meroc the one [Seldom seen, Seldom heard] and i see now why our Giant has chosen you. bear the weight of your defiance forevermore."

A splash of Azure fire washed out from Meroc's finger and towards Celia. An all consuming heat that splashed against flesh and scale alike. Pain erupting at its touch, as tendrils of blue radiance wrapped themselves around her. Heat searing its way into her very being as a grasping web of fire that left upon her both a mark and a consequence she would never forget.

|Mark of the Whispering Flame|: Rejected!

|Mark of the Belong to None|: Forged!

Insight(s) gained!

The weight of self sworn independence

The screen appeared before Celia in a haze. Words blurred out by the suffering she felt. Meaning hidden behind the agony suffusing her thoughts and burrowing it’s way into her heart. The only thing that persisted in her mind was the knowledge, the justification, that she was at least dying on her own grounds. Dying for her own choice.

At least, that was what she told herself as she looked up at Jonas. Watching as he turned his eyes away. Form radiating all the despair of a man who had seen too much death in one life alone. Too much tragedy.

And it was that moment that Celia swore, that if she somehow survived this, she would end up differently.

She would be free.

***

Celia woke up to a ceiling of bone above her head and a sharp pain in her back. Not to mention the ever present tang of hunger. But she was alive. That she knew by the taste of the air, and the horrid smell that assaulted her nose.

She was alive. Alive, and back on Haet's ship somehow. In a remarkably uncomfortable bed no less. One she slowly got out off as she gave the room she now found herself in a once over.

It was spartan. Offering no amenities except for the bed below her and a drawer made out of red flesh and carved up dragon bones. She almost wanted to eat it, a desire partially stymied by the realization that such an act would be rude, and that the experience she had just went through was anything but a dream. Which she had almost managed to fool herself into believing.

Designation: Trueborn Hybrid (Beyondling)

Classification: Feastling

Slots open: 6

1: locked, 2: This maw for Mine, 3: These teeth unending, 4: Tremor sense, 5: Lash, 6: Hard shell, 7: empty

Modifications available: none

Insight(s): The color of shadow, The weight of self sworn independence

[The Hunger Pained, The Self Fractured]

|Mark of the Belong to None|

In fact, now that she thought about it, Celia would very much prefer if it was a dream. As the mark now scarred into her side, a thing shaped like a flaming web, was both immensely disconcerting and itchy. Somehow, though, her new mark was the lesser change and inconvenience that now assaulted her. Secondary to the cloying sense of liberty that now made itself known to her, as if she was disconnected from the strings of the world around her.

And in their place a new weight had settled onto her shoulders, one that she would have to carry for herself. A weight that, if she focused on it hard enough, made itself a physical reality. The burden of it pressing down upon her making it as if she was twice as heavy as she actually was, which was apparently heavy enough to make her sink a third of an inch into the fleshy ground beneath her feet. Something she tried very hard not to think about.

And in the midst of doing her best not to think about how much she weighed, the room door was suddenly swung open.

Celia reacted on instinct, lashing out with her now two pronged tentacle. The twin limbs coming down upon the intruder like a slow bolt of lightning. Only for them to barely avoid having their head split into fours with a hasty step back, narrowly putting them out of harms way.

Giving Celia enough time to realize her blunder in that the intruder was no intruder but a member of the ships crew. One who was now staring at her with wide eyes and tense posture.

"Uh, cap'n said dinner'll be ready in two minutes." And then he shut the door.