Day 4 Frostbite, Heat, "I can make it all better."
TW/CW: Whumpee mental breakdown-ish, loss of magic control, manipulative whumpee, successful escape, corruption, non-con touch (sfw), scared whumpee
Word count: 583
"To someone unused to having power...It can feel intoxicating.", Whumper mused. "So you see, I just want to help."
They took a step forward, glowing red hand raised in a seemingly caring manner.
Whumpee whimpered and took a step back yet their eyes were pleading. Holding onto a debate they could feel they were losing.
"Please, don't, I'm sure I won't escalate."
Surely not, right?
"But you can't be sure. You can't be safe. If you let down your guard I can keep you safe."
The red gleam seemed to thicken somehow. Moving over Whumper's hand like liquid, and nearly dripping down as it stretched further toward Whumpee.
"I can make it all better. Just trust me."
Whumper was now standing so close they could brush their warm knuckles over the other's cheek.
Whumpee trembled. Their newely earned magic flared around them. Still not providing Whumper's any opening. But Whumpee was running out of arguments, and they were convinced Whumper could tell. Could see the doubt festering behind their eyes.
A few parts of the magic shine dripped down from Whumper‘s hand in the following silence. Swirling at their feet now.
"But I can't wait forever, Whumpee. You have to let me in."
The trembling figure dropped to their knees. Their mind was reeling, set ablaze. Pleas and reasonings.
Until something in them just snapped.
Blown wide eyes looked up from their fixed point in the dust of the floor, and finding Whumpers.
Their magic, new and so very, un-taintedly theirs, rose up around them as rippling waves of light.
"No.", they replied with steadied voice.
Whumpers hand tensed, their face hardening. Fallen had the oh so gracious, gentle mask.
"No?"
"No. I will not grant you entry. I will not become your possession to control again. Not with this. Never again with this."
They outstretched a hand, letting the energy scorch the skin around their wrists and fingers without ever really taking damage.
They'd been right. It was exhilarating.
"Maybe. Maybe its time to lose control."; Whumpee mused, their voice heavily distorted with raw energy as the scorching waves ripped further and further throught the air. Carving themselves into the cliff beneath their feet and blackening trees needles.
Whumper stumbled back, brows furrowed.
Shit, shit, shit.
"Whumpee. Stop this! Now! I order you!"
Whumpee laughed, their voice neigh unrecognizable, drunk on power: "I don't have to listen to you anymore now. I don't have to listen to you ever again."
"Whumpee. Don't do this!" Their balance was slipping as the floor of the cliff ledge underneath them buckled further and further. The resulting cracks, radiating hostile energy. If they fell or made contact with this magic they were going to die!
Another bitter, drunk chuckle. "Shut the fuck up."
The mana exploded, enveloping everthing around the two figures.
In the last moments though, inside the silence of the eye of it all, Whumpee regained their calmity.
The storm relaxed, ripples running out and flattening and Whumpees wholly glowing eyes examined the shaking figure on the remaining, fickle platform.
"You've got nothing on me anymore, Whumper. Stay the fuck out of my way.", they explained matter of factly.
Whumper couldn't hear anything over the ringing in their ears but they got enough from reading the others lips. It had been a long time since they were that terrified! But before their shaking eyes could focus once again their body collapsed to the side and all they could see where boots walking past them and leaving.
nathaer said: I was wondering... How exactly do you go about using corruption? How do you call on it and send it off? How do you aim and shoot, so to speak... Also, how exactly does corruption work? I have some idea, having read what's under you 'spells and info' about it, but any info you have in addition would be nice. ^^
remembering what it feels like to you, for me it's like a kind of gel-like substance. I can feel my shadow/personal darkness thicken from it's light-as-air state and grow heavy and thick. The name is the abilities name that is reveal to the people who learn it. Obviously i'm using the closest translation i can think of. As for how to aim and 'shoot' it depends of the ways it's being used.
Corruption isn't really something you aim unless you're using a delivery system. Personally when i use it the gel-like substance crawls along the ground like i'm a weak fountain and it's pouring out of me. For one of my embodied emotions he places the corruption inside his summonings and let them go around passing the corruption around through their touch.
The uses for it are pretty much whatever you can think of. it just depends on the emotional source. Corruption of anger can lead a kind of berserker state where you can ignore pain and push yourself beyond your limits. Sadness can lead to a state of weakness and lack of energy so it can be used to drain the will out of beings you're fighting.
Another thing that can be done is to put conditions on a corruption spell. For example my embodied emotion, Sorrow, got into a fight and infected his opponent with corruption that only spread if his opponent tried to use magic.
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that's about all the info i know. Hope this helps you.
inkstainedqueer said: The questions I have so far are: what, to you, is corruption? What does it look like? How does it manifest? Is corruption dangerous or evil? Is it possible to be consumed by darkness?
(I ask these last two questions because I’ve cast astral spells out of malice twice and had to undergo a purification ritual later.)
Firstly i would like to say that corruption isn't something that should be taken lightly. it is something very profound and very demanding and draining on the person using it. it must be handled with great care, but not something to be feared. Something to be respected and demanded respect from.
Corruption is a type of power for Darkness magic users. Each form and application is unique the one using it, but the abilitiy is generally the same. It is the ability to change one thing into another, sometimes physically, other times mentally, and even emotionally. Corruption can be powered with different emotions to reach different results. As an example one of my familiars is comprised of the souls of feral spirits i found and collected and then corrupted and combined into one being. I named him Charous and he's a shadow bat familiar, based off a necklace i wear.
Another way it can be used is to manipulate people. One of my embodied emotions is named Sorrow (can you guess what emotion he's supposed to be?) and he uses it as a kind of venom. He can spread it through infected his familiars with it and giving them corrupted touch. once something is corrupted by him, he can use it to dramatically weaken and even break the wills and drain the strength out of people and beasts leaving them helpless before his blade.
as for what it looks like...i would have to say it looks different to everyone. Personally i use it like the tentacles/tendrils that rise out of the shadows and corrupt all they touch with a creeping mud-like substance. It personally feels like i'm waist deep in blackened muddy water, but i am standing on the head of a beast that will eat anything i put in front of it, but if i am weak in my resolve could just as easily devour me. I have a few other posts concerning Corruption found here and here.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "Manifests" so i'm going to have to ask you to clarify in another ask x.x sorry. I'm not sure if you mean how it first shows up in a person or how it looks when it's affecting someone else.
Dangerous i'd say moderately so. Evil? Depending on the user and how it's used. I've said it in my other posts about corruption, you don't want to corrupt sentient spirits unless you have to, but personally i feel that feral spirits are free game since they are wild and dangerous in themselves. Some beings i know that use darkness magic don't really use corruption because of the time it takes to use and the fickle nature of it. Others use it as a kind of binding, "do as i say or the corruption will spread and cause pain/slowly kill you." Now i won't say that this is wrong, because it can be used to keep criminals docile or train beasts, just as easily as it is used to enslave a being and force them to do things they don't want to.
as for being consumed by darkness the answer is yes. Darkness I've mention is something like a great entity. I won't say a god, but something close to it. A being of almost infinite knowledge and power, but it has no particular will of it's own. It's content with lending it's power to anyone who asks. However at a certain point it realizes that the beings asking for its power are unable to control it and take over their body for them to complete their will. this can only be done for a short time (maybe an hour max) and causes permanent damage to the beings body in the astral. Darkness is neither good nor evil, but can do both.
One friend of mine, @MidnightFortis, has had an experience with darkness where she was brought into darkness after dealing with several attacks in the astral and it asked her if she thought it was worth going on living with all of the attacks and threats on her life, and she told it yes and it let her go back into the astral to her family and loved ones.
Corruption can be used in several ways but mainly it's a means to prepare something for manipulation. It can be used to drain the strength of someone/something or be used to empower someone/something by feeding it your own energy. The concept for corruption is to use as little as possible to 'infect' your target and then allow the corruption to leech off of the host's energies, change it into a usable energy, and then to grow using that energy and then repeat the process. As it continues to grow it drains more and more energy from it's host, but infecting a host is not the only way to use corruption.
Personally i use it when i'm tired to try to regain some energy back. By gathering random energies that are hanging in my general vicinity, and then adding a little corruption to it so it can alter the energy into something more useful to me i can rejuvenate myself to a degree or make it easier to gather a lot of energy for spell work.
Corruption can also be used to alter spirits as well. Of course consent is what you're going for when you're dealing with spirits that you are on a friendly standing with, but when dealing with feral spirits i say all's fair so do what you want.
Personally i have guards and normally keep up a barrier to protect myself from feral spirits and dissuade them from coming close, but if i see one that i like i can rescind my barrier and guards and allow it to come close to feed off of my energy and then corrupt it. If the corruption can fully take over the host, the spirit will be obedient and listen to your orders, but it can also be broken down into energy to be absorbed by your Personal Darkness or used in other ways as you see fit. However corrupting something doesn't really change it's overall strength. If you corrupt something weak, it'll still be weak, but you can combine it with other corrupted spirits to create something stronger.
However you shouldn't create something stronger than yourself. In the end the spirit is still under your influence and if it gets strong enough it will break off your influence. The best way to avoid that is to corrupt it to it's core, but that is a more difficult task than it would seem. If done improperly the spirit will just break apart into energy and wouldn't exist anymore. If done properly, the spirit is yours to do with as you please. You can easily send it to its death and it will go without resistance.
