Soulless Forest Altar

NPC:

The silence of the familiars grows somehow deeper as you approach past the altar and you can feel the gaze of each and every one of them as your shoulder meets stone in an embrace. The touch is more welcoming than you might expect, the atmosphere abruptly shifting into something inviting, soft, and warm.

When you inevitably begin to pull away, you find yourself woefully lacking in the strength necessary to part from the stone. Did your joints always feel so very stiff? The longer you remain at the statue’s cold side the more you seem to fuse as one. Your shoulder is no longer flesh and fur but a marbling of obsidian and lazurite. It is becoming clear that your offering may have been taken more literally than you had anticipated, and as hours pass and your body begins to slowly harden, you are forced to come to terms with the fact that you are locked in Death’s embrace.

Days pass and your body begins to consume itself, your excess weight converted into energy that can now only be expended by the movement of your head, which is tipped up more often than not to await the rare summer shower - your only source of hydration. The familiars go about their business around you as the event draws to a close, carrying on with jobs like dusting the statue’s stone and even extending the cleaning to your own mineralizing form. The rain turns to snow and then to rain once more, seasons passing in the blink of an eye. Your stone-touched body is beginning to resemble the cerberus itself, partially preserved where your flesh and fur has solidified, skeletonized in others.

A firefly trails downward from the cerberus’ deep socketed eye, intent on burrowing in and finding a new home within your own. You close them tight as it nears.

When your eyes reopen, the world is as it was. Your shoulder pulls from the statue with incredible ease and you can distinctly feel that your unique and heavy-set frame has returned to you. The inviting warmth that had shrouded you in his embrace has evaporated abruptly, replaced by the foreboding chill that had settled on the land years, hours… or maybe just minutes? ago. The familiars have returned to their posts, and it is as if you had never hugged the statue at all... except...

A new weight is felt hanging upon your side, something that was definitely not here when you arrived nor present for the embrace of your lifetime. It's use is clearly combat-based and on the outside the accessory seems relatively normal. It isn't until you wield it in battle will you be brought back to this time and have the inviting warmth of Death's embrace thrust upon you once more, the feeling so forceful and intentional that it may as well be traumatic.

Before you go, something draws you to glance up and meet the stoney gaze upon each of the three-headed statue’s faces. A keen observer might notice a distinct change in the expression of each as they look upon the intricate carving, where each of the cerberus’ maws have appeared to curve up into the barest of smiles.

You have received:

Battle Accessory

Staff: note when claimed