Sagau Gnaw - Tumblr Posts

Gnaw (6)

The bottom of the ocean is a cold, dark place. There is no light here, other than the faint glow of many bioluminescent markings on Osial's body. The sun's heat has never reached this deep, and the cold is so intense that you've shivered yourself to death repeatedly.

But with each death, you adapted. The icy temperature of these depths no longer mattered.

The crushing pressure of the deep ocean that once threatened to splinter your bones and crush you into a meatball now had no effect.

Gills just below your ribs filter oxygen into your body now that your lungs are useless.

"Great Storm, what are you thinking on so intensely?" Osial asks. "You have been silent and still for nearly three days."

You tell your newfound friend that you might have an idea of how to leave, but it will require his help.

"Of course. How may I serve my Creator?"

You ask for a bit of his flesh and explain that you gain energy from eating or from exposure to the elements.

You've already spent three days impaled through with stone spears at the bottom of the sea - you've probably absorbed plenty of energy and just need a catalyst.

His heads argue over who will be donating the required offering, but eventually settle on letting the central head bite off the very tip of its tongue.

A bit of glowing blue tongue drifts lazily on the currents and towards you. It's a chunk of flesh the size of a glass bottle, oozing a dark blue fluid.

You reach out with your unpinned arm and grip it, briefly cringing when it squirms in your grasp.

Once it's close to your mouth, you open up and bite into it quickly. This also means that you get some seawater into your mouth along with the bit of meat.

Gross.

The god-flesh isn't particularly appetizing, either. As you do your best to chew it, it writhes and twitches in your mouth. The taste is ponderously bland, though faintly fishy, and you're more than a little unsatisfied.

It takes you more time than you'd like to consume it, but once the last of it goes down, a feeling begins to flow through you.

A new sensation. Like there's a part of you that's just lost the pins-and-needles from being slept on and is back to normal.

Not just that, either. You feel revitalized, like the pains of your body are far away. You plant your palms against the seafloor, dig your fingers into the sands, and begin to rise. Osial looks delighted.

The spears of stone dig into your flesh, but you will not give up now. How can you? You feel unstoppable.

Electro energy arcs across your body and up the monstrous pillars, scorching them with such heat that they briefly glow.

You may be buried beneath the weight of a mountain... but faith can move mountains.

Through labored breathing, you ask what Osial desires most in the world.

"To sink Liyue to the bottom of the ocean, and see Morax take my place in the darkness below the waves eternally."

More personal than that.

"To hold Beisht, my beloved, in my embrace again."

...more achievable from his current position?

"Oh. Freedom, of course. To not bear these ridiculous spears in my back any longer."

And then, that new part of yourself flares to life. You smile through the pain of saltwater against open wounds and tell him you can manage that.

(Anemo smiles, eye glowing in the heart of the storm. A new bearer already? You're so kind.)

Mondstadt's suffering comes to an end, the haze of nightmarish heat finally lifting... but the winds are not the same.

The scent of sickness and rot no longer carries on the breeze because the breezes are so much milder.

Anemo visions dim, and then flare much brighter.

Less than an eighth of Mondstadt's population had succumbed to the heat, but many had become sick from an outbreak of food poisoning and the rapid onset of heat exhaustion. Others had become ill in the process of burying loved ones.

Their cries for aid went unanswered, and Venti's faith had been deeply shaken.

If their prayers were not reaching you... then who had they been worshipping all this time?

(He receives no answer, only the sounds of mourning on the wind as Mondstadt begins to burn the diseased dead.)

You stand at the bottom of the sea, hand against a stone spear weighing down Osial.

The electro in your body was refined and stretched into an axe, which you now used to hack away at the first pillar.

Every minute or so, you have him move slightly to see if the weight is becoming more manageable.

After four hours, each of them has been weakened enough for him to push off if he wasn't exhausted. Which he is.

You reach for your new power and then to Osial. Across the world, Anemo visions glow faintly. In Zapolyarny Palace, the Gnosis of the Anemo Archon unwinds into a soft breeze and vanishes.

Words come to your lips unbidden, a recital from a time you've forgotten.

"Noble beast. I, your maker, wish to form a pact with you."

Osial looks at you curiously, and then again in surprise when the Anemo Gnosis appears in your hand.

"You have shown me kindness in this dark place and given me the power to unbind us both.

You have been imprisoned beneath the waves for centuries by the one you hate the most, away from your lover, your goals just within reach but lost to you.

I have been hunted across the land I have traveled by traitorous mongrels and then abandoned here to rot alongside you.

With one look, you knew it was me. With but a single glance, you understood who now was at your side.

Your fealty to me is so very valuable, especially now."

You hold out the Anemo Gnosis in his direction.

"Become my Anemo Archon. The true God of Storms, and the symbol of destruction for all those who would rise against me."

He laughs with all five heads.

"I accept, my maker. The skies will be mine, and all who breathe beneath them will know you with reverence or know nothing ever again."

"This pact is sealed."

The sea burns bright with teal and blue light and then erupts into a monstrous storm, a hurricane screaming to life as a massive beam of energy pierces the heavens and vaporizes Guyun Stone Forest.

A new lord of the skies erupts from the sea with a joyous scream, stone pillars falling from his back, feathers and scales colored brilliantly.

"MORAX! I will have your head as a trophy for the All-Maker and your flesh as my meal! Face me and die, or watch me tear this miserable collection of insects apart like the coward you are!"

On his back is you, and in your eyes is a hunger for vengeance.

Your power fills the hurricane. Vast blades of lightning ready to fall at your command. Screaming winds coalesce around Osial. Arcs of plasma line his new fangs.

Liyue will pay for its actions, and the two of you will be collecting with interest.

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