Rock and.
Could you share the broad theme of these two adventures?
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As Turiik's hair is transitioning back from white to black, he says, "So can we eat now?"
With the morrowkin momentarily captured, the bear tries to drive the creature to its knees while positioning in a fashion that will make it easier for Meadow to strike.
Prepare to Aid: Meadow's Unteather:
The bear rears back and wraps his paws around the morrowkin. "Your claws are weak now!"
The One Who Hungers follows after the morrowkin and rears back on his hind lengs. He tries to wrap the bizarre creature of time and doom in a bear hug.
"One more time." In a swirl of snow and flames, Turiik is replaced by the blood stained polar bear. The bear roars before charging around (or through) the tables to pounce upon the morrowkin.
"What does it matter?" Hunger growls. The gentler voice of Turiik pushes through with a momentary darkening of shock of his hair, "I'll go stand closer."
Turiik takes his position outside the door to the lower decks. "Why didn't we recruit the chefs to the effort?" His hair turns fully white and his eyes turn black. "Quiet, boy! I'm all you need."
"I can't," Turiik says and is almost immediately overrun by Hunger's voice, "Inferior weapon."
Extra wrinkle: Untether is not a Strike. You wouldn't be able to use Devise, I don't think.
"I barely got to eat anything but morrowkin flesh last time," Hunger grumbles quite audibly. Turiik's voice then says, "Jayma, maybe you could quickly explain what's going on to Rui while someone else finds Maika?"
Panting and limping, the polar bear growls, "I could have held it for the rit--" He slumps over onto his side and shifts back to Turiik in a flurry of snow. He rises unsteadily to his feet. "We can prolong our cycles by killing each other?"
"Now I will eat your future!" the polar bear roars before pouncing upon the fallen morrowkin.
"If I am not holding it back from the ritual," Turiik says. "Then I will eat it!" Hunger roars as Turiik transforms into a polar bear with a blood stained mouth. He bounds forward and snaps at the indistinct being's arm. Blue flames flare around his teeth.
"Giving one to the enemy seems wasteful," Hunger grumbles petulantly. "It's for a good reason," Turiik reassures the spirit inside him.
Turiik raises an eyebrow at Lazarus' assertion. Or maybe it was the One Who Hungers. His hair is turning more and more white as Maika calls out time and his eyes darker. "I will stand in the way of the door to slow down the beast," he says. "But I wouldn't mind something to eat before the battle starts."
"I will hold the beast back," Hunger says through Turiik's mouth. "Sacrifice the other diners. They will be remade when you finish the knife and save us from this absurdity."
Turiik--or maybe it is Hunger--nods approvingly at Jayma's assertive tactic. "He will not remember this if we fail, anyhow," he growls under his breath.
"If the ritual required investing a physical knife, I suppose a kitchen knife would be what Rui would have on hand. Or a dinner knife. With all the potential mundane looking knives, Jayma and Tarcog are right," Turiik says after pondering for a moment.
"You think the ritual knife is in the kitchen being used to chop vegetables?" Turiik asks Lazarus with an arched brow of puzzlement.
Turiik takes one of the amulets and hands it around his neck. "That's what I was saying," Hunger says through Turiik's mouth. "Let us see what we can force--," the voice changes midsentence, "--convince him to share."
With a flurry of snow, the polar bear is gone and Turiik stands in his place.
The One Who Hungers' eyes go wide, and he roars. His blood-stained jaws snap at the ghost. The bear then scoops the elf professor off the ground and tosses him to the other side of the ghost.
As the threat manifests, Turiik is consumed in a flurry of flames and snow to be replaced by the blood-stained polar bear. With a roar, the beast bounds into the chamber and tries to take s bite out of the ghost.
"Nobody is going to remember anyway," Hunger grumbles back through Turiik's mouth. "I'm trying to be quiet," Turiik whispers.
Trying to be quiet and fighting for control of his body with the One Who Hungers to avoid the spirit bear's rash and likely loud efforts, Turiik applies slow, constant pressure to the edge of the door.
"I can be fairly quiet," Turiik says in a whisper . In the deeper voice of the One Who Hungers, he says, "It'd be easier for me to claw through it."
While he waits for Meadow's answer, the One Who Hungers addresses the cooks through Turiik. "You should be proud. Your meals are worth killing for. And dying once."
"We should tell him," Turiik growls with the voice of the One Who Hungers. "He won't remember anyway. And probably won't believe us."
"Everyone wants to change their fate for the better," Turiik says as the tour continues on. "I wanted to know if you recently did so by magical means or through parlay with spiritual entities."
Turiik waits for the others to make their requests before asking a rather blunt question, "Have you made any magical or spiritual entreaties to improve your fortunes? I remember that the Golden Fortune failed its first two ventures."
When Turiik awakens on the gangplank, his spine arches and fingers extend in a painful imitation of claws. "What--? Where--?" The Eratuki man manages to sputter out a few words before his hair turns white and eyes turn black. "You are going to need me," the deeper voice of the One Who Hungers says. "And maybe I'll get to finish my meal." While the transformation remains, Turiik's milder voice asks, "You all saw that, didn't you?"
The polar bear slumps to the ground as the doom takes him and turns into a pile of snow. Unfelt wind blows the snow away, leaving Turiik's corpse.
The One Who Hunger rears back on his hind legs. "I am the one who devours things!" The bear's body is ravaged by the entity's supernatural powers, but still he stubbornly fights on.
The white haired Turiik grabs his ears and roars in pain. His eyes turn black as he glares at the aberration. "You ruined my meal!" In a flurry of snow and flame, Turiik is replaced by a red-mawed polar bear. He leaps across the floor and tries to make a meal of the ephemeral invader.
Turiik leans over to whisper to Lazarus, "Hwarang is a thief. He filched a medallion and some coin off the businessman, Tai Fong--FOOD! YES!" Then his hair turns white and whatever more Turiik could have told the elf investigator is lost to the One Who Hunger's prodigious appetite.
"You've been at the docks for quite some time," Turiik comments. "You're saying that you've never left? Not even once? What year do you believe it to be?" His voice then drops several octaves, "And where is this finest feast?"
Turiik cinches his pack and follows the others onto the mysterious ship. "I'm not sure it's as gloomy as giving up on their lives, but they sounded like they had no hope for anything good in the future," he comments.
"So many people," Turiik comments as they move through the city. Occasionally, he turns and looks in the direction of one exclamation or another, apparently understanding the language (clearly not Cyclopean). In front of the Golden Fortune, he cocks his head. "That was wise, but where are the passengers coming from if it is warded to keep people away?" he muses before moving toward the ship.
"If the food is cursed, you might not want us to bring you anything," Turiik says to Tess and then tosses Eando a furtive thumb's up. The tips of his black hair then frost white and he adds in a more gravely voice, "That doesn't mean I won't eat it. I fear no food."
"That sounds ominous," Turiik says. His things are gathered and packed. "And rather mental. Hopefully, there won't be any violence."
Once they return through the book, Turiik again spends much of his time in isolation or closeted with Vigilant Seal members. He continues to study the plants around the oasis and work on his natural remedies when he is not otherwise occupied.
Once his bleeding ultimately subsides after a few applications of his healing poultices, the One Who Hungers shifts back to Turiik. He looks abashed as he says, "I'm sorry that I left you. It looks like you've been through a lot in this manor." He casts a glance at the mangled fey remains visible in the other room.
The Blood Painter's antics only seem to enrage the One Who Hungers more. He steps toward the aberration and continues to try to maul it despite his own savage and bleeding wounds.
Turiik is taken aback as the eight-limbed monstrosity tears at him. Moments after Lazarus stems his bleeding wound, his hair becomes stark white and his eyes turn black as his jaws enlarge. "You! You trapped us?" the One Who Hungers growls. "No matter! I'll rip you apart!"
Turiik blinks for a moment as he lands on the firm floor of the Hallway of Mirrors. "My companions! Where is this? How long have I--? Who!?" Elsewhere and Elsewhen (Please Read): It was a momentary flash, and then Turiik falls into a grassy field. He can hear two other bodies thud next to him as he falls. Then a woman knees over him. “Are you alright?” She has a plain, friendly face, and her hands and apron are dusted with flour. Turiik groans as his senses come back to him. He pushes himself from the ground, surprised at how weak he feels. ”I-- I’m–,” he stammers, blinking in confusion. He is even more surprised as he realizes how quiet it is in his head. Finishing his rise, he nods to the woman. ”I’m fine, where--?” The Erutaki hunter’s voice stops abruptly as a shadow looms over him and the woman. ”It never stops surprising me how fragile you are, boy,” the One Who Hungers growls. A thin man holding a paintbrush looks up at the bear, and three children run out from a house and pelt the bear with painted rocks. “Out! Out!” they shriek. “Elsen, paint it out!” Turiik turns to see a tall, white bear with a blood stained maw. ”What are you going to do with--Ow!” The One Who Hungers turns a baleful eye at the children pelting him with rocks. He bares his teeth and chuffs at them. ”Don’t hurt them!” Turiik pleads, moving to stand between the bear and the children. ”All these miles and you still don’t understand,” the bear growls, sounding somewhat sad. Turiik eyes the bear dubiously before turning back to the woman and then the painter. ”Um, where are we?” “That’s what I want to know,” the bony chief of the City Council, Liro Traventhal, asks as she pulls herself out from where she fell in the field of painted wheat. Then her eyes widen in amazement at the three children. “Kiri! And Lars and Soka!” And then the very reserved Liro breaks down and sobs. “Are we in the afterlife? How did this happen?” ”I don’t think we’re in the afterlife,” Turiik says with a sidelong glance at the bear next to him. ”Where are the other Pathfinders? And how–?” “Other what now?” the painter asks. “You were sucked into the painting. Into my painting. It’s not a bad place, you know. I escaped into here when my lover’s husband threatened to disembowel me,” he sighs. “And then it turned out I could not leave, though sometimes the world shakes and the painting spits someone back out. Um... how long has it been?” Turiik and the bear glance at Liro in unison. ”It is 4723 Absalom Reckoning,” he answers. ”You said that we’re inside the painting?” The One Hungers growls, ”I will tear us a way out.”
Turiik slaps the bloody fey wings across the wall before dropping them and shifting back to his fully human form. ”Why am I dark?”
Turiik drops the arm and turns to rush past Lazarus toward the other fey in the room. He mauls the creature with tooth and claw.
Turiik shakes his head with the dismembered fey’s arm still in his jaws. Fey blood splatters the wall in a zig-zag pattern. ”Who’s—ack!”
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