Ixa managed to reach the living forest, albeit with a mental exhaustion already piling.
"I don't know if I can even do anything in this state of mind, my head is already starting to ache."
[ You can only deal with it; would you rather be bored doing nothing in the forest? ]
"Hell no."
Ixa forced himself to feel invigorated as he pushed through the forest.
Almost immediately, animals showed up, a few birds in the trees, a fox in the distance, even a deer.
"So many living animals."
~Chirp~
~Chirp~
Although...
The fox who turned, hearing Ixa's approach, flinched back, staring...
~Growl~
Before jumping away, out of sight behind the trees.
Birds intently stared at him, not looking away.
Ixa didn't have the energy to have much free though, he only wondered why it reacted like that, a bit dumbed down to realize his appearance is far from what it'd recognize.
Not wasting a second, he continued further, but with it, the constraining of his mind grew, like how one sleeps on a limb, cutting blood off from limb.
He hadn't even thought if his ability to sense the dead and living would work outside his limits.
Luckily, they were, albeit very restricted, only just out of eyeshot roughly.
"Nothing."
Seeing a few plants, a shrub, log, and flowers, he could only have breaths of free thought now, like if he could possess a plant, or obtain the decaying tree.
Like cloth tightening across one's face, he strained to activate his abilities.
[-Cari, I am also feeling the limit; it's only growing the further you get, don't push it, I doubt you can even use your abilities outside of your limit.]
Ixa tried to utilize his ability to break down the log's structure, however, nothing happened, finding System to be right.
Not wanting to go bag empty handed, he did something a tad drastic.
~CRRERK~
The bunny's two exaggerated spikes pierced through the log, barely reaching the other end.
As Ixa lifted, the weight was enough to stain the rabbit, but it was somewhat manageable, at least for a time.
Turning with meager care, he moved as quickly as possible, which only was a crawl with his head turning this way and that from the weight of his head and mind.
Taking a break every couple minutes, not for stamina but because the carry load crossed the limit of what this bunny can handle, testing the state of its body and pushing it to the maximum, testing its unique state of not quite dead, not quite alive.
Getting stuck from brute-forcing certain spaces, Ixa's thinking was finally hitting a sort of deterioration state where he had no thoughts besides the main one, which was to focus on the task at hand.
Secondhandedly causing the knight to fall near the dead forest's barrier.
Trying to manage both this far out would be far too much, although its help would be immense.
Soon he was out of this forest and now had a clear path back to his.
Dozens of minutes past, his travel back hadn't gone unnoticed...
• • • • •
The moment he neared, he foolishly decided to try to get the knight to help bring it inside.
Doing that created the first truly acute feeling he has ever felt belonging to him and his body alone.
Exhaustion.
It lasted briefly as he forced the shock and ensuing numbness to hold till the rabbit lifted it with the knight to bring it within the border.
The exacerbation ceased, however, the damage was done.
Both knight and rabbit were shaking, echos of Ixa's status.
'Just...why the hell...does it have to be this hard?'
[ ... Ixa, in ways you are much too powerful for something just born, in others, you are weaker than you justifiably should. That's just how things work, no one has it born perfect as a whole of the being they are, and of their situation.]
'Not many can even think when they were just born either... or handle what you were forced to be put through...killing this young...'
Ixa could only sit there and rest in response, bringing the two deeper into the forest after detaching the log from the bunny and having the human body lift it, being much more capable to do so.
Forgetting or perhaps thinking its too much to simply transform the log and have it move with them as necrotic essence.
Both lax in their control, the knight's head would be dangling towards the ground if not for the helmet and the log in the way, while the rabbit, the closest mimicry of Ixa's state, walking at such a slow pace that it dragged the knight to walk at its pace.
The moment they entered the enclosure, they fell, the log changing as it fell, soaring back into the air and into the core.
Ixa watched with tired eyes as the screen updated, passively taking in the accustomed change he felt within his core, the material settling wherever in there, however, the minimal feeling in regard to the insensitivity of the core gave a bad premonition.
[ 3. - Collect enough
"All that...for 2 necrotic material?"
[ It was a relatively small log Ixa.]
"Yeah... just- too tired to think or feel any more than what I already unexpectedly have."
Ixa sat there, silently processing his mental exhaustion, its creeping nature on his mind now halted with his active resting.
He didn't fall asleep, just, laid there, dormant.
Unknowingly to him, time was passing like water does down a river.
• • • • •
The sun disappeared behind clouds as they rolled across the sky.
"You saw it again?"
"And it had company, a knight, wearing the armor of the Antra village, hoisting a log with it for some reason."
"'With it'? What do you mean 'With it'?
"You do remember its description, two large dark grey spikes attached where its cheekbones would be?"
"It knows to use those like tools?...It has intelligence, and not being alone suggests-"
• • • • •
Now afternoon, the sun managing to pierce parts of the clouds with its warm rays, were welcomely absorbed by the stone of a castle, in the midst of it, a tower.
"...we should be careful, and take into account each encounter, the fact it could lift an entire log on its own speaks of strength something that small shouldn't be inherently capable of."
Upon his heightened platform, on his throne, soldiers surrounding him, he turned from his advisors whispering something in his ear to the few who were on their knees, below him, dressed in scout attire.
"Where did it go?"
"It seemed to have returned after reaching the Wern forest."
"Keep an eye out for it, I want regular reports if it keeps this rate of activity."
• • • • •
Now evening, the light fading, its last reaching rays grasping the only town to have been visited by the strange being that's now in the apple of their collective eyes, the rest smothered by the clouds reclaiming the sky.
"...so you're going to keep in contact with your routine treks into the forest?"
"Yes, better that to keep up with what he's doing; on another note though, is the town really fine with you becoming its leader?"
"I'm confident I earned some of their respect and trust with revealing everything from last night; it's just a matter of what I do from here to solidify and grow it."
• • • • •
Finally, night once again overtook the bright sky, with the stars glow escaping past some of the clouds, after only a little did Ixa 'wake' from his nice rest.
No yawn, no sleepy eyes, just an abrupt cut from an empty mind to a thinking one.
"How long was I sitting here?"
[ Close to a day.]
"That little amount of time out the forest equated to nearly a whole day of exhaustion?"
[ You have been pushing your body since you woke. ]
"There's always some reason to make it right; I don't wanna focus on that, so let's move on to something else, what can I do today?"
Clasping his imaginary hands, Ixa's puppets reanimated, the knight back to its false 'life' pushed against the dirt, lifting up as it was face first laying on the ground, while the rabbit was more dignified, curled slightly due to always being under his influence, although its spikes had pierced a bit of the dry dirt it laid on, propping its head to stay in the air, no soreness to exist in spite of such a placement.
Taking a grasp of his surroundings as always, he found himself alone, comfortably, alone...
[ I have found out the comprehensive abilities for the rabbit if you'd like to take some time for that. ]
"Thank you System, I seriously did not want to wake to boredom."
[ Much obliged. (: ]
| Name/Species: Necrotiasic Rabbit
| Stats
STR: 7 -> 8
AGI: 13
VIT: 6(?)
INT: 0(8 -> 10)
| Skills & Abilities
A quick scan left him confused greatly, especially considering-
"If its stats grew- wait, intelligence? Status."
| Name: Ixa | Species: Fallen Treant
| Stats
STR: 0
AGI: N/A
VIT: ?
INT: 10
| Skills & Abilities
Race Abilities:
{2.1 of 3 requisites towards Advancement}
Feat Skills:
His INT grew again; the more he burdens himself, the stronger he gets.
"Good to know, now, back to the other."
Dismissing his status in the darkness, he turned to the other, still open, through the eyes of the rabbit.
'Appendage Malformation'
| - The gift of unlife and undeath has been spread... - Able to utilize
Available Options -
Arsenal - 1
Defensive - 0
Utility - 0
"I've got to stop being stunned seeing stuff like this, O-kay, okay, lets just see-"
{Arsenal} - 1
Necrobiotic Inflation - The body enlarges via an explosive growth of the body's necrotic tissue, either to an external or internal affect; External means it will grow around the main body, while internal means the body itself will grow, former is quicker, but weaker and temporary, latter is the opposite: stronger and more permanent, but slower.
Cost: Scales with size of growth, body composition, and type of growth
'~inhales~ ~exhales~'
"Accept, and move on, accept, and move on."
'Necro-Root'
| - The center of the blessing for this cadaver. - Key to interacting with its progenitor and its creations, enabled via its grave-patches, along with a host of other options left to the mind to explore.
Ixa unable to understand it for a second, before realizing and looking at the little 'pads' of black on his paws, soft to the touch, too soft.
'Okay, not as bad, but barely any exposition, another skill for me to figure out I assume.'
Ixa thought of the last and it pulled up, the main race skill.
| - A new kind of life granted past its old death, remade, risen to become anew. - Grave-Patches, Necro-Root, Pale Senses of Life and Death.
"'Pale Senses of Life and Death'? System?"
[ Simply a reference to it only has one trait similar to your own race, a weaker, 'paler' in comparison version of your sense of life and- ]
"I get it, I get it, I'm getting tired already of hearing that over and over again."
Attempting to stir the necrotic essence material in his core, it didn't budge even a little, instead he almost accidentally triggered the process to transforming his puppets, which Ixa halted.
He can't access any of the material he absorbs as its going towards his race advancement, and he assumes he has no actual storage for it outside of that, yet.
Given he can't use
Pushing the sensory of the rabbit, he traced it from the feeling of his eyes, through the skull, down the neck...
It was straightforward but left his body tingly as the roots moved in sync with his senses, the major entwinement in the rabbit's chest, to it spreading through each arm and leg, buried just below each grave-patch.
From there, they began to extend as he pushed the sensory further than the roots were, unraveling slightly from the center to push forward at each end as the process begun to proceed naturally, but he curbed that feeling as he only wanted to start small, allowing only one to push through, in his right paw.
In front of him, facing upward, the patch began to stretch from the root inside before it began to turn into the gooey condition it was in before, the white root emerging, swaying right and left as it rose before stopping after reaching the height of his head.
Slowly, he learned to move it to his whims, from patting his head, so trying to make it open up like his eyes do, took a certain bit to finally do so, but it allowed him to essentially have another eye, giving the inference he can have 4 other points to see from.
He attempted to grab a rock with it, but it took multiple attempts to learn the proper way to do so, considering these roots were no hands or paws.
There was one more thing he wanted to try, but he was afraid of pushing what he wasn't sure was delicate or not.
'Let's start small.'
Walking over to the knight, it grabbed the root and raised it up.
And thankfully it wasn't too delicate at all; Ixa was raised with it, and as he controlled its length, he was raised up and down.
'A possible form of transportation, good.'
He was satisfied with its performance, and this was its second-hand use, the roots main properties were still unknown as the System wrote that it is designed for interacting with others of his creation, and possibly more.
"Can't wait to find out."
[ Neither can I, also, satisfied? ]
"For now, onward to our next goal... how about exploring? I don't want to go as far as the forest, too exhaustive and short-lived, the next place would naturally be the villages, but I don't want to reveal myself any more than I already have; Dua's village is a no, the fortress one a hard no, and the tall one, just something about it tells me to pass, leaving only-"
[ The broken-down village? ]
"Yes."
• • • • •
The front gate was held by multiple chains and even ropes hooked through multiple of the openings left in the grate pattern, looping back into the holes left into the walls, some naturally carved windows, some much larger and a marker of something massive smashing through.
The latter was strewn across the walls, some even still had boulders left in them, others charred, amongst others Ixa couldn't begin to describe.
As his knight wandered into the town, it was something to behold for all the wrong reasons.
Debris of buildings were strewn about the cobble roads, patches of dirt were dead, only the fewest of patches that had any modicum of grass had crops planted haphazardly about them, with fewer people tending, harvesting them, with feeble and shaking hands.
'This town has to have more people, why else would they stay here-'
~GOOONG~ ~GOOONG~
Nearly covering his ears, Ixa turned to the right, and found the only outstanding building seemingly left of this broken village.
A church, its entrance, people were filing out of by the dozens, clean, dirty, children, men, women of all ages, above, a bell sat on top a tower, incorporated into the building.
'All in the church, their religion is keeping them together?'
As the last of the people filtered out, a few pairs of eyes seemingly recognizing him, remaining hidden amongst the crowd, a figure walked with a practiced and slow pace.
A thin, tall man dressed in priestly attire, regular black and whites, presented himself, bowed down, a necklace dangling, of multiple concentric circles with lines coming from the center and stopping at various circles, made of a red steel.
"Welcome, Stranger, to the home of Meruerora, Holder & Home of Memories, and one of the creator's of the System."