[Nexus] Inside 49

[Slii Arhem]

Riftside - Within the Glow

"FOOS!"

Needs Food Badly flings himself backwards towards the rift, his dragonspeak rocketing him away from the graveyard his face had been pointed towards. He doesn't fly too high, however. Thu'um was never one of his major studies, and it shows. Standard MagTech hover technology should be enough to get him the rest of the way, though. Needs isn't sure if this is a job for velcro, latin chanting, or duct tape, but a closer inspection of the rift should clear that right up in a moment.

Riftside - Within the Glow

The shout creates a massive crater below him, blasting away the ground as if it were merely compacted ash. It does manage to propel him even with the soft target though, but only for a few feet before an invisible web of something impedes his progress.

For a moment, it's hard to identify what this could be, especially when he's not facing it and it's flexing under him in prepation to send him hurtling back into the crater he just came from, but there is something inherently impossible about it that teases at his senses.

[Outside the Rift]

This is really, really weird.

Gerra the griffon had first picked up the anomaly from quite some distance away. Or more properly one of his scouting drones had shortly before it transformed into a pigeon with a camera strapped to its head. Whatever this thing is it is putting off a MASSIVE thaumatic of a sort wholly unlike anything else the griffon has encountered thus far in his short visit to the Nexus.

And he's already run into some really strange stuff.

As he watches the rift from a perch on top of a roof nearby he can't help but consider the spectacle before him. It's quite stunning to be honest. An interesting subject of study. Warrior or no nearly all griffons are scholars at heart and Gerra is no exception. While he's loath to leave it behind he has removed and compacted his armor for safe keeping outside the rift.

Considering how it reacted to the drone Gerra has the feeling that whatever forces are at work here aren't at all kind to the elegant arts of mathematics, geometry, and astrology used to motivate his technology.

That means heading in with only the natural gifts Anu had given him along with the drone that's already a bird to record what they find. And to be fair the griffon isn't at all shabby. He's roughly the size of a liger, massive and lean and honed into a deadly weapon in his own right. Feathers are a dusky grey and fur of a slightly browner hue. Talons and beak as black as the night sky. Wide yellow eyes that speak of untold cunning. A pair of feathered ears sport his head and a wide fan of plumes the end of his tail.

He wears no clothing, of course. Aside from the occasional jewelry griffons don't normally adorn themselves like some frail unicorn might.

"Whether this maelstrom of mischief is one of your works or not, Enki, I do not know. But preserve me through it none the less," the griffon mutters as he leaps off the edge of the roof and begins flying toward the edge of the Rift.

Riftside - Gerra

The air is a very dangerous place to be this close to the rift, with all sorts of weather events fighting to maintain their presence in the skies. There are miniature fire tornados and nanobot swarms, lightning duels between imps and solid nitrogen hail that freezes the flesh it touches so hard it burns. It's almost as if the rift was trying to force such fliers down towards the comparatively calm streets. However despite all the danger and chaos, it's very easy to see that nothing seems to be struck dead by any of it. Quite improbably a winged centaur flies right into a lightning strike and, after the glare is gone he seems utterly unharmed.

The effect is repeated several times over with various deadly weather conditions and flying targets, and the fact remains. Something is keeping these things from dying.

[Riftside - Harnel]

Harnel will abandon the attack when it doesn't connect, but he won't manage to pull his hand back before the strips of flesh latch on.

Well then. If he's not going to stop this, there's one good thing he should do.He can't meditate with her there, and he can't leave her to menace other people. Can't use a weapon, but punching seems to work.

One thing that doesn't require much in the way of muscular action in the hand is claws. The woman may find herself with a half-dragon tearing out her throat and, eventually, ripping off her head. He wants to make sure the deed is done.

Riftside - Harnel

The woman does not resist, a last laugh being choked off as her throat is stabbed into with the claws of his still fully draconic hand and ripped apart. The flesh he tears into begins to unravel itself and attempt to snake up his hands and possibly even towards his arms to continue the transformation, even as the woman goes limp long before he has gotten to the point where ripping her head off would be necessary. Her blood, though it does not have a mind of its own as her skin and muscle seems to, bears the same corruptive properties and will attempt to continue changing him wherever it touches directly. Considering he's torn open her jugular, quite a lot of blood is spraying around.

If he really wanted to work at it, he could probably rip her head off just to be sure, but with the blood and strips of flesh flailing about he may find that his arm's strength is being reduced just as his fingers were as they may be soon reduced to non-draconically enhanced womanly human arms, along with anything else the blood has touched.