The desert stretched endlessly in all directions. In some sense it filled the gray hollow with a sense of despair. A desolate landscape void of life. But that wasn't right. There was life, just not the type one would expect. The white sands hid hundreds of thousands of horrible creatures beneath it's surface; hollows. Stratus footsteps crunched as he moved aimlessly. Being out in the open meant you were fair game to be attacked. Weak creatures avoided such things. But if your were strong enough such attackers would keep away. Still some would only attack strong targets. There was no guarantee of safety no matter who you were. Stratus didn't worry about such things, he was in a strange mood. He was unable to get to the Living world of late. His hunger was growing by the second. Eating the souls of dead humans was a hollow main staple, but eating other hollows was an option. Stratus didn't like this practice as the taste was horrible. At this point he didn't care, he was hungry. Anything would do. He scratched his shoulder and ribs. His body felt itchy. It had been that way ever since his fight with the Crawler. The strange octopus like creature that had nearly killed him twice. Somehow he had survived the second encounter victorious; he had awoken from the deadly explosion only to find bloody remains of the large beast. There was no doubt that he had fed upon the creature.
There were times he blacked out. Afterwards he would find utter destruction all around him, his body covered in blood and entrails. Something happened to him during that time. A frenzy that laid waste to everything. He tried not to think about it, he scratched again absentmindedly. Thinking about it annoyed him, why couldn't he find anything? Wildly he felt around with his spiritual sense. There were creatures about, but they were avoiding him. His annoyance had caused his spiritual energy to pulse outward. It was scarring off possible prey. With much effort he calmed down and with that focus he began suppressing his signal.
"Come on now, come and get me." he muttered as he pushed his signal down further. Making himself seem weak would attract plenty of attention. Not like the creatures would question why a strong signal would suddenly go weak. His pray were feral creatures. Too stupid to understand the trap they were walking into.
The ground rumbled, he had gotten a bite.
What emerged was not what he expected. The long arms that stretched out of the ground and grabbed at him the white mask like a hockey mask. Barely dodging the first swing it pulled itself free of the sands and took another swing. It’s body round like I had no back legs, just a long pointed tail. Once freed of the ground it stood. Apparently it walked by standing on it’s long arms. The hand walker looked down on Stratus, it was well over double his height as it stood. It was then he realized the purpose of it’s tail, it swung like a whip. The crack sending a shockwave of noise and a small explosion of sand. Stratus leaped again. He hated fighting in the desert, so few obstacles. In his hand he shaped a curved piece of crystal and threw it at the long arm. The small blade cut right into the skin above the long arm’s elbow. It teetered and Stratus rushed forward before it could right itself. Already he had created new weapons. The emerald blades glimmered in his hands. He leaped crossing his arms, he uncrossed slashing the arm. Like a pair of scissors he cut the arm off below the joint. The creature screamed and fell backwards unable to support itself anymore. It landed and sent up a cloud of dust. Stratus didn’t give it a chance to recover. He attacked the last arm before the monster knew what hit it. With all his strength he drove the two weapons into the other arm like spikes. More screams and it attempted to strike back, but he had moved again. Another weapon was taking shape in his hands; a wedge and a pole. In seconds the crude axe was complete. Wielding it with two hand he brought the weapon down directly into it’s round body. It screamed again, but this time it swing landed. Even dying it had enough power to knock the gray hollow quite a distance. The damaged arm grabbed at the emerald weapon sticking from it’s chest. Clinching the weapon it pulled it out, a fount of blood poured from the open wound. Stratus stood to watch the creature’s stupidity.
In the moments he began to feed on the corpse. Hollows usually disintegrated after death. But by avoiding the mask they lasted longer. He tore the flesh from the creature and ate. It was nasty. No because it was raw, it had no taste. It was like eating paper mixed with ashes. Human souls and meat was so much more appealing. He released his energy now, some hollows were like vultures when it came to a fresh kill. His body was itching even more as he swallowed a fourth mouthful. But now it was a painful itch, something under the skin. Then it turned to pure pain. His arms and ribs were on fire. Did the creature have some kind of poison? He screamed as the pain increased. It felt like something was trying to push it’s way out of him. His energy pulsed violently he couldn’t control it anymore. The next wave of pain hit him and everything went got hazy. No, he couldn’t fall asleep here. Not in the open. Then everything went black.
He awoke with a start. The fact he had woken was a miracle in itself. His head ached and his body felt numb. He put his hands to his head to keep it still as he slowly got up. A groan escaped his lips as he pushed himself into a sitting position. He looked about, the other hollow’s body was gone. How long had he been out?
“That’s it, no more hollows, I’m only eating humans.” his voice was barely a growl, his throat felt raw. He rubbed it trying ease the slight discomfort. His eyes shot open as he came to a realization; a pair of hands were still on his head. Stratus looked down at the hands rubbing his throat. He looked down, sure enough it was his hand and flexed the fingers. The hands on his head released and waved at him. He could feel the third set of arms holding him in a sitting position. He wasn’t dreaming, he had grown two new sets of arms.
*****EDIT*****
Ability 4: Crazy Eight - Eating the powerful Crawler has has an adverse effect on Stratus. Causing him to grow more arms. The second pair have grown right at the shoulder blades. The second at the bottom near his rib cage. While the number of clawed hands has increased Stratus can still only create slime from the original arms (middle). The new limbs are the same size and strength as the original set otherwise.
These arms are retractable when he wishes to grown them he suffers a -10 to Spiritual power. Since more arms does give him a tactical advantage I figured some kind of penalty must be employed. All the arms sprout at once, he cannot keep a set hidden. All or none. He can fuse all three sets of arms together to form a single pair of oversize arms granting him +10 Fighting skill and -10 speed for 3 posts. After those 3 posts he reverts back to his regular arms and must wait 5 more posts before using his 6 arms or empowered arms again.
Word count: 1198
Subject: Armed and dangerous (solo) 
Thu Jun 09, 2011 12:21 am
