Form of Man

Nothing came to pass, at first… but Fairy and Lily both appeared to be stricken with anxiety. Tara, for her part, was simply apprehensive; she constantly swapped between looking at the staircase and looking at the window they’d used to get in, never sure if they would or wouldn’t be attacked.

John blinked out of the tower to stand upon the narrow pillar that topped the same; from memory, he blocked the window off with self-facing tunnels, sealing his summons inside. Now I can just convey them if I need help… but really… His eyes peered into the lamp-lit world and found… nothing. No colossal monsters to flee from, no host of angels in the sky… nothing but a quiet, blurred city below his perch.

Save a bit of movement… there, on the lip of the wall parting the city from the crop. John narrowed his eyes at the far-off figure and, now that a moment had passed, he began to notice them: small, pale bodies on the ground, moving or crawling like ants in the cracks of a wall. John safely jumped down to investigate, starting with the lone example he saw upon the popot field wall… and found it as startled as he was.

Broken Clay
Level 8 Unmolded
HP: 180/180
MP: 203/203
Status Effects: None
Qualities: Angel, Construct, Cracked, Unfinished
A disconnected lump of material from the Shaper’s Grove, this creature bears only trace proof of its divine origin. Because it had not been fully shaped, it is weak, incapable of flight, and remains disconnected from the Origin Stone.

John had barely gotten through its information block when the thing lurched towards him. Half of its human-like face stared out at him while the other, diagonally-morphed half was a clay-like mass with small indents and craters, like the presses of fingers, marring it. It stumbled on a stump leg of chaotically shaped rock and another leg of what might have been a human man, and its feminine, human arms were severed at the upper-limits of the bicep, leaving a gash of air between the rest of the arm and the bulbous torso approaching the Gamer. When the arms moved, the shoulders and uppermost parts of the arms moved with them in unison, despite the obvious disconnect; its approach made John realize the back of its head, too, had been cracked off but still floated near its former host.

This shattered statue, half-done and mistreated, was a pale gray in every feature, down to the whites of its single eye; its half mouth opened to reveal a pale gray tongue, pale gray teeth, and a half formed jaw as it cried out from malformed lungs. It raised its arm to John… and struck the stunned Gamer on the face.

-19HP
Broken Clay’s merciful touch heals you for 13HP.

Despite the real damage suffered by John, he did not yet react. The creature before him was barely six feet tall, but was so broken… so pitiable… that the Gamer hesitated before realizing the creature’s tortured movement was to rear back and hit him again. John turned on his displacement and returned the favor with some trepidation.

CRIT! Your serpent’s bite deals 1,175 damage to Broken Clay!

Broken Clay slain!
+190XP
+1 lump of inert divine clay

Achievement unlocked! “When Angels Deserve to Die”!
You slew your first angel! The road to Hell has been paved in better.
+5,000XP
+Angel Maimer

The pitiable rewards followed the crumbling demise of the pitiable being; more fissures appeared on its body, but now its spirit had been exorcised. The clay crumbled into a pile until, in a flash of purple, it vanished back to the Abyss.

“What the Hell… is an angel, then?” Fairy, I fought one of the angels. It was… like a broken porcelain doll, but poorly shaped like clay and… it came from somewhere called the Shaper’s Grove?

<Congratulations! ‘Bout time you started killing the little pests.>

Fairy… Shaper’s Grove: are you familiar with it? As John asked his questions, he pulled up his inventory to see the massive weapon that was now taking up 10 slots in his inventory.

Angel Maimer: magical weapon. This double-bladed greataxe is forged of blacksteel and enchanted for the express purpose of killing angelic beings. It normally deals [12-24 x (User’s Str/2)] damage on hit, half of which is radiant damage; this damage is doubled against angels and also gains +10 points of unaspected damage. Angels cannot hold this weapon without taking 10 points of unaspected damage per turn held; demons, no matter their normal combat aptitude, are automatically at least proficient with it upon wielding. Any damage dealt to angels with this weapon will grant 20% lifesteal.

<No, but you can’t expect me to know all the Heavens, right? In any case, sounds like a good, easy way to rake in some XP and quit this place, right?>

This might have been impressive if I didn’t already do way more damage… but if Fairy wields this...

<Huh?>

Before John could clarify, the nearest watchman’s booth, some twenty yards away, opened. John walked towards it as he replied, Nothing, just a weapon I got for an achievement. Anyways, I’ll start conveying you all out here to start sweeping up the barrier, but if you see one that isn’t just a misshapen statue, report it to me before destroying it. I still need to… catch…

She moved with a grace that made her alien in an alien barrier of an alien world in this alien Abyss, and this was the first thought that conquered John’s mind as he froze in place. The smooth stone leg danced forward, sheared halfway up the shin and again just above the knee, but it all moved with an unseen breeze, as one, in a perfect, gliding step. The other leg followed to bring the masterpiece into view: the completed shape of a woman, or something like a woman, but sliced in enough places to mute any notion that this was a human being.

An almost flat chest sported tiny nipples on its pale white-gray, and almost invisible cracks, like marbling, marked them and other points of bending on her body. Her upper body was cut in an upside-down V from the lower half, leaving her flat belly connected only to part of her right leg and the entirety of her left. The plane of her torso dipped into the natural, gray-white bush of pubic hair that hid her rocky cleft, and her thighs parted enough to show it during her wide, graceful bounding. Her shoulders were fully connected, as was her right arm until it came to the wrist where the widest gap—a full three inches—parted her forearm from her palm and slender fingers. Her left arm was disconnected in seven parts, more a shattered collection of polished stones than a limb, though her left hand and fingers were perfectly formed and intact.

But most haunting was her head, parted from her neck halfway up from her torso and with an extra, diagonally-cut piece hanging from this partition as well, and its too-large eyes. Her adult body was topped with the face stuck between a child and a woman, with features too large to appear mature. Her massive eyes—naught but shades of gray from the whites to her pupils—were framed by stone locks of hair frozen forever in a carefree, windy mien. Only on the upper-part of her body was any color spared: a slight pink to her upper-cheeks just under the eyes, upon her lips, in the freckles painted on her face, and in the microscopic cracks that dotted her neck and shoulders.

John consumed these details of her with such relish, with such pained pause and hesitation, that he took a moment to even realize why: she was… art. She was form crafted for a haunting beauty, a living energy that mortal sculptors struggled to emulate… and then this enchanted form, more alive than men even when it was broken, was given life. She was living art in a way the Abyss had yet to produce to John, and she brought him back to his struggling weekends of attempting to capture some girl’s form on his paper with amateur hands and rank desire. For that moment, he was just that awkward, teenage artist, aspiring to something less than greatness, put before the finest sculpture he had ever seen… and it was this even when smashed into a dozen pieces.

What if he had let her remain wherever she was from? What if her maker had perfected this form? What did John do to what would have been a sculpture to end wars and strife on Earth, save for want of possession of it, all to level up his demon? This was hyperbole, but it was the sort of hyperbole that now spun John into a silent stupor. Only that work of art charging him started to draw John out of his daze, and it wasn’t until she already struck him that he woke up properly.

-22HP
Broken Clay’s merciful touch heals you for 20HP.

Again, even their hostility was marred by a natural inclination to help. Statwise, she was barely different from the misshapen horror John had just put down… but the thought of shattering her to powder, of vanishing this form…

No. He needed his angel… and no matter her lack of utility, he had to have her.

You tried to deal subdual damage to Broken Clay, but it is immune!

John let her swing miss him as his illusory copy distracted her; one by one, he reviewed her qualities.

Angel: a creature born from a Heaven and charged with divine energy in exchange for divine duties and nature. Angels are normally bound to a single Heaven, though they count all Heavens as allies unless ordered otherwise and all Hells as enemies without exception.

Construct: this creature is not a living being and therefore lacks certain vulnerabilities, needs, and wants. Immune to charm, **** effects, hunger, life effects, sleep, subdual damage, and thirst unless otherwise noted. Constructs do not heal over time naturally.

Cracked: This clay was not fortified to be removed from the Origin Stone, existence has broken its form. Disconnected portions retain their position upon the body unless forcefully removed; such removal does not damage the creature.

Unfinished: This clay was not yet completely shaped and fortified, and as such has been forsaken as lost by the Shaper’s Grove. Though it retains its divine spark, it can never rejoin the Origin Stone or take its place in the Watching Garden. Unfinished angels cannot channel their divinity in any way except to heal others with their touch.

“Can you understand me?” John suddenly asked.

The creature did not cease her attack, and her only reply was another blow to John’s shoulder.

-26HP
Broken Clay’s merciful touch heals you for 20HP.

You tried to use Aphrodisiac on Broken Clay, but it is immune!

-19HP
Broken Clay’s merciful touch heals you for 20HP.

Even as he struck her, John felt his pants growing taut. Never had art been so alive and sexual; it was carved as if by the most graceful of hands, it shined with marble perfection, it felt soft and hard at the same time when she struck him with her stone palms or knuckles… John was hard-pressed to want anything more than to fuck her here on the wall, if he could only catch her. “Can’t we talk this out?”

She did not reply except by missing him a third time, and upon that blow John leapt forward to grapple her.

Her body was too firm to be flesh, but it was warm and, against expectation, wriggled and bent under his touch. She slammed her fists against his back for more ineffectual damage as he rubbed her body and tested her; his fingers slid into the gap of her neck, but he was given no reaction. His other hand drifted to her round, stone ass and tried to give it a squeeze, but without avail. Her joints, which folded like soft skin as she wriggled, only had any give when she willed it; a caress of her hair proved it was a sculpture, the locks naught but fragile strings of stone melded together.

If I can’t catch her with subdual damage or pleasure, I need to see about disabling her with this “cracked” status... As her leg reared back to kick him as well, John grabbed her right hand and pulled. Her body jerked with it; he grabbed both halves of her arm and tried to pull them apart at the gap that already separated them, but it refused to so much as budge. Forcefully removed… but it’s too damn tough…! John blinked behind her, leaving her stumbling… and might’ve snapped his fingers in delight if not for the gloves of his armor. “This should work.”

The stone angel turned, her brow furrowed, and silently she marched towards him to renew her ****. As an experiment, John opened a tunnel between the outermost joint of floating stone of her left arm and her left wrist, opening its other end back at the watchhouse just a few yards from where they fought. The tunnel snapped into place, anchored upon her wrist stone, as she prepared to swing her clenched fist at his head… and John flinched as the hand hit him square upon the eye.

-25HP
Broken Clay’s merciful touch heals you for 20HP.

The wrist should now think the hand is gone… but the hand isn’t seeing anything but another barrier in between, and if my fingers couldn’t cause a disconnect… John opened a second tunnel flat against the back of the first, pointing this new tunnel into the small room above where his minions waited… and watched as the hand suddenly fell from alignment as it, too, found itself far removed from its anchoring arm.

The Broken Clay blinked at her disconnected hand, still clenching and unclenching on the floor, with blank confusion. John checked her sheet again.

Broken Clay
Level 9 Unmolded
HP: 195/195
MP: 213/213
Status Effects: None
Qualities: Angel, Construct, Cracked, Unfinished
A disconnected lump of material from the Shaper’s Grove, this creature bears only trace proof of its divine origin. Because it had not been fully shaped, it is weak, incapable of flight, and remains disconnected from the Origin Stone.

Her health was totally unaffected.