Patches (Open RP)

"Yeah, I'm fine." the Khelari retorted casually, only her snout and mouth sticking out of the water, and in an almost vertical fashion. Her eyes were closed in the visible relaxation of the liquid's refuge, "I got used to water a while ago. It still feels strange, but not in a creepy way anymore. I think I'll need some clothes when I get out, though. I may be Polar, but even I'm not built for a climate this cold."

With the bulk of her senses thus obscured, the reptilian female didn't even notice her answer didn't reach the ears she intended it to, remaining at ease and unaffected by Trisys' departure. Jade, on the other hand, took due note, eyes widening in surprise as the satyr-like being was suddenly there, standing over him and pleading...something.

"Huhwhat?" was the only word his thoughts managed to congeal into at that point, the great degree of just how taken aback he was written all over his open-mouthed face. Eventually, he gained the presence of mind to add, "Wish? Want? Where...?"

Magic ... a lot of magic... indeed the energy was building and as a response the area was a swarm of fey folk. The rocks covered now with the Gnomes both male and female (and no the females don't have beards) as well as brownies and other earthly spirits. The water was now filled with water spirits, Nixies that looked like a cross between a frog and a human as well as blue mermaid/mermen like water sprites. The air was now a swarm of Pixies and other magical sprits of the air. Among the forming masses were a few Satyr and Dryads. They were all responding to Trisys call for magic to grant the wayward wish. Beyond the spirits power the very area was once part of a magical world and it was possible Trisys powers could be amplified within the Forest.

Lazardarus nearly jumped out of the spring when Trisys appeared and then looked around in wonder at the appearing gathering. "Defiantly a bonded spirit... That wish she's talking about is summoning a lot of magical energy. What ever that thought you had just a moment ago Jade is about to come true!"

Outside the springs Chaos was starting as people stop and stared at the growing vortex of magic. Lady Aineruda took in a breath then turned to two female guards "Change of plans! You two go into the womens section and retrieve our guess! Get the attendants to provide robes but this relaxing soak is now officially over!" She then spun to look at Cerelassion and the four Male guards. "Get in there! What ever is happening is drawing all the magic in the Valley!"

The guards split and rushed into the Springs as Aineruda stood there wanting to rush into the springs herself but dared not risk her own life for curiosity.

How could there be confusion on the matter when karma had granted him a boon? A bit of despair crept into Trisys's voice as the elfin guards rushed in, "You wished to be normal again. It will happen. I cannot stop it. But the cost, Master, oh, the cost! To change you so completely will have an equal price. Life will be lost to live."

Again the alternative was clearly presented via the computerized Token: Make a modified wish, "I wish to be normal again... at my time of choosing." And soon! The accompanying countdown timer was down into single second digits.

Jade's delayed decision on his wish's fulfillment was being cut finely. The added magic from the land and attracted fey was adding momentum beyond Trisys's experience. If left to the last moment before vetoed, there could be a nasty backlash.

A bolt of golden orange lightning screeched to a halt, leaving glassed sand in its wake.

Tafari craned his head in the direction of the springs, far far away. A deep rumble crept up along the spine of his vestigial physical body, and with his focused perception, he saw. IMMENSE magical energies were building. 'Power.' Tafari thought, his mind performing an instant one-eighty, dropping everything that had preoccupied it just a moment before, and focusing on the roaring second sun that had popped up into the sky. He stood there and stared at the (to most everyone else, anyway) invisible monumental mass of power funneling down into a single location. 'Feels like an interdiction of...something? Very specific. No ritual, substituted with build-up. Conducted by...A SINGLE entity? Feels like Djinn, but...No. And wait, what the hell am I thinking? This isn't the Rogue Isles anymore. That build-up could be a new mass about to appear. Maybe this is what brings new places here.'

"Screw it. Whatever it is, I like, I want." He said to himself, grinning savagely and turning to look at the aproximate location of the power surge. "Apparently some ******** missed the memo. Firing off magic of that grade is just like asking to be curbstomped by everybody and their cousin when they come a' callin'."

In an instant, Tafari was gone, racing at super-human speeds and trailing golden-orange energy that glassed the ground as he shot toward the Elven homeland.

Jade felt like he'd been smacked in the face by a wet, windswept flier - that sort of sticky paper that takes one completely by surprise and seems to take ages to get off and actually read, despite being right there in front of one, clearly written and in presence.

By about now, said 'ages' had passed. The metal Dragon had gotten the 'flier's' message. Live and die or don't live. Great. What a choice. And yet...it was tempting, to be a alive again. To breathe, to feel...to die. How long had he been wanting to die now? He couldn't even remember. He remembered each and every one of the suicide attempts, but not actually when they'd started. Had it really been that long? Had he really suffered all this time just to stumble across such a simple answer to his desperation? To his end?

And yet...he was scared. Not just of death itself, but of the questions that had been nagging at him since the first day he'd found himself in this body. Was he even Jade Blackwind? Or had the real one died on that operating table and he was just a machine running around with a programmed copy inside? He'd been told he had a soul...but was there a difference between the soul of a machine and that of an actually living being? If so, what would happen to it? What happened to machines after they...died?

No. He didn't want to chance it. His fear of the unknown was too great.

"I..."

It was also what made it too late.

The wish was granted.

Jade's words jammed in his throat, and he felt like his whole body had just seized up. It felt almost like the virus he'd caught way back when, and yet different at the same time. His vision blurred and went from red to black, and a loss of balance overcame him. He barely had the time to wonder just how that was possible with a computer controlling said balance, and then it was already over. His world had gone dark.

From the outside, it all looked completely different. Almost harmless, in fact. It began with Jade freezing in place mid-sentence. Something in his eyes seemed to dim. Then he started to grow. The silver-gray plates of his armor came apart at the seams, the steamy water rushing into the gaps where wires and circuitry now came to light. Surprisinly enough, the underlying machinery transmitted not a single spark into the water, perhaps from the magic, perhaps because it simply didn't stick around long enough. Metal vanished bit by bit as it was replaced by flesh, still machine transmuted to pulsing organs, cold composites by warm, living tissue.

All the while through the transformation, Jade kept growing, changing, becoming more and more like humans imagined what a dragon should look like. Hands became more pawlike, the S-curve of the spine more arched, and his velvet-brown scales larger and thicker, assuming the look of the traditional armored hide. His long black hair became a thick, full mane that hung loosely from his (relatively short) neck, and a pair of majestic, leathery wings sprang from his shoulders and back even as the rigid airfoils of silver-gray metal crumbled away, like the rest of his armor simply falling off the growing Dragon as if he'd been wearing nothing more than an armored suit this entire time.

In the end, Jade stood on four legs and at least six, if not seven meters off the ground at the shoulder, the rest of his proportions having changed in an equal manner, dominating the scene in a manner comparable to a Boeing 737 - large and in charge.

And then he collapsed.

Water splashed in all directions as the Dragon fell over sideways, the legs on his right side giving way first and followed by the rest of his body, the tip of his left wing hitting the surface last, but still with due report. Then things got quiet, and he lay there motionless, eyes closed and breath stilled.

"Uhmp." the Khelari remarked with an undefined expression, a hand cupped over her right eye as before as she stood there by the tail-smashed palisade that had formerly divided the male and female regions of the hot springs, "I...assume that wasn't supposed to happen..."

Jade's transformation overshadowed what happened to Trisys to all save those possessing the greatest mastery of magic.

Time ran out. The magic crested, and then began to flow through her to the Wish Maker. Trisys screamed her denial, sensing that Master had been about to modify the wish. Yet she was only the conduit, what could she do?

Wasn't there always supposed to be a choice? Another way? Wasn't that why she had been created in the first place? To be an alternative when all other options had run out?

And Master. He was good. He was considerate. Through every action he showed a caring for others above himself. Such did not deserve a dead end. Master should deserve more. No, that was not what he called himself. Jade. Jade deserved more.

The magic was flowing through. No. It would not be allowed unchecked. She would not allow it. She was more than a mindless tool. She was Prosopopoeiasys. And she would rather do anything than live with the burden of Jade's death by her hands.

After all, there was always another option. It had a price. But it was there.

That other option was taken.

Rather than allow the magic to reform a body that could survive temporarily, Trisys would exchange her flesh fate instead. Jade could still have his body as it was born to be - flesh and whole, to live out the remainder of a full mortality lifespan. While she, Trisys, would take his body's fate of metal immortality.

Of course Trisys didn't really understand what she was getting into. Had she suspected, fear may have stalled her until it was too late. Ignorance fueled with carelessness. The stuff of grand disaster. Or great discovery.

Jade unfolded into his glorious form, while below Trisys's image began to waver.

Then he fell.

Trisys was underneath.

Enough had already transformed that she was not crushed by his mammoth form. Yet all was confusion for Trisys. She could not sense things properly. Only her horns knew they were pressed between scale and wet earth. And they were changing, two spiraling into one, the third extending, too malleable to give reference.

Everything was red. Buried beneath Jade's body it should be black. Why was it red? A strange series of messages, error messages like she had seen in Striga base she realized, were flashing over and over. The computer program was a mess as it tried to compensate for the new equine form.

Everything else was... not. Where were her hooves? Her wings? Her limbs? She knew she had them, but she could not feel them. The Voices chorused, "Now you know, now you know, the loss of self, the ache of needing touch, the longing, the longing, now you know how we are." It was worse than being numb, more so because the sensations from her horns were a cruel comparison of how the rest of her no longer was. They had retained sensation by being condensed spirit rather than body's flesh.

His weight was not moving. Why was Jade so still? Even if her exchange had not been enough, Jade was due to have fifteen minutes of life before his form dissolved away. Her token further confused the matter. It reported it was again the dull gray material as first discovered upon arriving at Patches. Was it, and her, now loose for another to claim as Master? Was Jade... dead?

Oh, oh, no. Please, EarthMother, do not say that Jade had paid a price for her interference. Please, let it not all be in vain.

Soul essence pooled. Tears that had been impossible for Jade when a machine spilled out of Trisys's eyes to wet the scales they were pressed again. Tears of a unicorn, said to possess powerful healing. Even revive the dead.

Please, Jade. Live.

That was when the guards got out of what remains of the locker room chamber. All six had their swords drawn. "Nobody move!"

The Lady Aineruda didn't wait once she spotted the appearance of the dragon. She went around the rubble and came to the Male side of the springs. "Put those swords away! They wouldn't do anything to a dragon." She looked over those in the springs then at the forming crowd. "Guards get those folks back, and Melisande get these folks some robes Now!"

She then looked at Lazardarus then over at the female side of the springs "Would someone explain what is going on!"

Laz had no problem being nude but being nude in front of the closes thing to royalty in the valley was a completely different matter. His hands were down hiding his privates as he looked around. "I'm not quite sure myself. One moment Jade was what I thought was a mechanical being and somehow Trisys who is.. er was I believe a bonded spiritual being. Then the next thing I knew she was here drawing as much magical force as she could. This is the result." Then he looked around "Wait where is Trisys?"

Cerelassion put on a pair of glasses and looked over the Dragon and what appeared as a Mechanical Unicorn. "My word I haven't seen a Dragon in over 200 years. He appears to be in a hibernation state no doubt caused by the transformation. Harmless for the time being."

The Gnome and a bunch of other of the magical fey spirits were dancing completely unaware of the dread that Trisys was feeling. The concept of death was not in their understanding so they celebrated that the magic worked and Jade got his wish. Then the yellow shirt gnome looked at Lazardarus and made a shrug motion much like a child would.

Melisande was well organized even in such a chaotic event and soon she had the nervous aids handing out robes to everyone and leading some of the other people who were soaking in the springs away from the group.

Out at the heavy wooden front gate leading into the homeland, situated between two granite masses and a wall of tightly clustered trees, (the same way the others came in,) the guard/s stationed there heard a very loud knock.

Cerelassion was quite right. Jade lived, but he slept the deepest slumber a Dragon could sleep. That wasn't a bad thing, though. In fact, he needed it, though not in a physiological sense. Trisys' magic had crafted his body fresh and strong, and her tears spread pure life and vitality into every last cell. No, it wasn't hid body that needed sleep. Rather, his mind did. He'd been awake for over 400 years now, never sleeping a single night - not even a single second - always awake, even in the endless darkness that had been his prison when his body had shut down from one cause or another.

No sleep. No dreams. No escape. It had driven him to the brink of madness more than once. Perhaps even over. But right now, that didn't matter. For he slept. And he dreamed. Deep, serene, and releasing dreams. He'd awake soon enough. But for now, he needed sleep.

Trisys would probably be able to discern this state of his body by now. Her new sensors were quite capable of that. For herself, on the other hand, they were sorely lacking. Not completely, however. She was able to feel something, even without the sensations of her horns. Unfortunately, it wasn't something people tended to like feeling.

Cold.

She was cold. Even lying there in the hot water, she felt cold, all over and throughout. Cold, heavy, and slow, as if it took ages to make even the lightest of movements. Lifting Jade off herself would've been the easiest thing in the world now. She had enough raw strength to raise a mountain. But lifting her own fingers, her own arm, this was what now felt almost too heavy do bring up the strength. It was almost an exact repeat of what Jade had felt when he'd first awoken as a machine.

"Um...how?" the Khelari meanwhile questioned nervously upon joining Kethara at the brown-scaled Dragon's side, the direction of her head darting about as she looked for somewhere to gain leverage, grabbing here, there, and generally everywhere in an effort to get hold, "I mean, I'm strong, but I'm not that strong. Ohhh, if only I'd taken a runner. Ummmuhh...maybe if you lift here and...I go here...urr...hate math..."

The Guard commander heard the loud knock at the gates and rush out onto the walk way to look down. "That was a bit too loud to be someone asking to be let in. Fire a few flash arrows let see what we can stir up." Two other guards fired their flash arrows down at the ground. The reason was simple if the disturbance was an animal the flash and bang from the arrows would scar it away. If it was an attack the flash would still have an blinding effect with out doing any permanent harm.

Back at the springs Lady Aineruda looked at Kethara and the Khelari "Perhaps I can move him." She didn't move but lifted her hands chanting a spell the effect was that Jade started to lift into the air. The strain however was seen on her face as she struggled to handle the forces needed to Negates the gravity around Jade's body. "Hurry! Get her I can't hold him forever!" The Guard elves with her put away their weapons assured now that it wasn't an attack.

Lazardarus grabbed a robe from a stunned aid and wrapped it around himself. It now dawns on the Fey folk about that something wasn't right and the Gnome started tugging at his beard with a confused look on his face.

The flash arrows went off.

Immediately,three more tremendous knocks were heard on the door.

Her transformation continued.

Trisys learned that there was a difference between timelessness and a time lacking meaning. The former she was familiar with. It had been part of her nature. Now with the processing and information feedback speed of a computer, a moment seemed like a weeks.

She couldn't keep up with most of the information flooding her. The one piece she did care about got through: Jade slept. He lived! Thank EarthMother, he lived! She wanted to nuzzle him in delight. Her exuberance was cut short. She couldn't figure out how to move. Every time she tried an error message flashed, the self-diagnostic ran, a confirmation replied that all systems were within acceptable parameters, then the error started the cycle again.

The cold set in. Antarctic winter cold. Heavy glaciers permeating everything. Trisys longed to shiver, with no more success moving than before. She knew she was supposed to be able to life Jade without strain. Yet the cold, the heaviness, the instability of it all was too much. Too much.

Too much in another arena, as well. For magic was the traditional antithesis of technology, as the Circle of Thorns proved during the first Rikti invasion on Earth. The two forces were less than amendable to the merge. Like children doing one-up-manship over a pile of toys that degraded into squabbling, toys were alternately snatching away from the center until both were sated. Except those 'toys' were abilities and attributes of Trisys in the 'center'.

First the computer interface abruptly disappeared. Her world went from red to black, and she briefly wondered if she had died. No, no. It hadn't disappeared completely, just mostly. She vaguely knew there were remnants handling automatic functions but had no conscious control, like a body of flesh sending signals to inhale and exhale. If she could, Trisys would be hyperventilating. Yet breathing was another property denied.

The strength was gone. Her chance to move Jade on her own gone with it. It was more. Just what though was unknown for now.

Next the cold left. She had been wrong before - numbness was worse. Wait. There were a few spots identified as 'self' that felt pressure. Which half-dozen parts of her they were she couldn't tell. Best guess was that the pressure was from being under Jade.

She could sense more being lost, bit by bit. The Bond and Voices remained, the only thing familiar in the whirlwind of change and rechange.

Light! Blessed daylight! Except something was wrong there, too. Could she at least move towards it? Trisys tried but the light remained stationary. Was she moving at all? No, the scattered sensations of pressure were still relative to each other. If only she knew which pressure was which part of her, maybe she could coordinate.

Thus it was when Lady Aineruda lifted Jade that Trisys was found a tangled mass. What all physically changed was hard to tell. A first obvious one was that Trisys was once more crimson. As dark in color as the spilled blood of the Khelari's breakfast, save this time it was all over instead of just her backside.

Unsure of how long the elf could keep Jade up there, Keth moved in as fast as she could. Flying in, she pulled up to a sudden stop right next to Trisys before grabbing her and flying back out. She may have been incapable of lifing Jade's massive form, but lifting the satyr, even mechanical as she'd become, was a much easier task. Setting her down somewhere not under threat of being crushed by multiple tons of dragon, she nodded to Lady Aineruda that she could set him back down now.

Ildela just sort of hovered around the back of the group, not being able to do much to help. "....why's she suddenly a robot?", she wondered aloud as her sister brought Trisys out from under the dragon.

-----------

Meanwhile, the guards on the gate would find themselves joined by another as Paxtera landed neatly on top of the wall, directly above the gate. She leaned over the edge to take a look at whoever was banging on it. "Knock louder, we don't think the other side of the planet heard you", she called down sarcastically.

It was a good thing that Trisys and the others got out from under Jade because when the thunderous Knocks echoed off the cliff walls combined with the stain of holding the spell. It was to much for Aineruda and Jade came down splashing once again into the water and she fell to her knees. "What... did you get her? Is she alright? And what is that knocking!"

Cerelassion went to help Keth "Here little miss lay her on the grass. I see if anything broken... wait what do you mean she's suddenly a Robot?" Lazardarus shook his head "No Cerelassion she wasn't a machine." He motioned to Jade "He was till she performed that stunning feat of magic." Cerelassion shook his head "Transformation magic on such magnitude..."

During that talk the Yellow shirt Gnome appeared on top of Jade and started poking him. Much like a child would poke at a sleeping parent.

At the Gates the Commander looked at Paxtera "I saw you enter with Lazardarus. First thing first I'm the commander here understand. If you can handle that I welcome the assistance." He then turned to one of the guards. "Fetch one of the spell singers. Archers ready your arrows." Then he looked over the side. "If those blows are on focused at the same spot. These gates are meant to take strong damage but the hinges and locking device."

He then moved to where he could See the guards on the ground. "Don't Just stand there get the braces! Reinforce those gates!"

Tafari glared up and looked at Paxtera.

"Are you the IDIOT who fired arrows at me without even bothering to LOOK AND SEE WHO IT WAS FIRST?" He roared up at her. By looking out at the front of the gate, she could clearly see it was entirely undamaged. The guards would probably need to ask him about that later. "What if I had been a diplomatic envoy? What's WRONG with you people? Are you completely and utterly void of common sense?!?"

"I think they switched bodies...kinda." the Khelari remarked at Ildela's question as she assisted Kethara, clearly trying to puzzle this together herself. She wasn't exactly a stranger to sending a mind into another form, but she didn't have any actual experience either, "Parts, at the least. Don't ask me why he's suddenly huge, though. That's...no idea."

Jade meanwhile had nothing to offer. Even with the gnome poking him, the Drokar remained in his deep slumber. It would take much more to rouse him - and whether or not that was even a good idea was quite the decent question...

"Much as he should have done more than hammer on the gates, he does have a point", Paxtera told the commander, sounding as if she didn't think he quite deserved the position with thinking like that. "Firing on anything unknown will only make you more enemies."

She then quite casually swung herself over the edge of the wall and drifted down to talk to Tafari face to face. "Presuming of course from your wording that you in fact aren't a diplomatic envoy, what do you want here?", she asked rather bluntly.

"Well..." Tafari struck a thoughtful pose. "1: I want a look at the world-altering grade A Maleus class magic you geniuses just fired off, 2: Your energy signature tells me that you're a Kheldian. I'm thinking I need to have a word with you, and 3: If it wouldn't kill you, figuring out a way back home from this damn rock via collaboration would be nice."

"Not much for small talk, are you?", Paxtera asked in return, a tinge of amusement crossing her face. "And why exactly would you want to have words with Kheldians, we wonder." She didn't seem interested in answering any of his questions, at least right away.

Trisys had been remarkable enough before. The effects of the discord transformation were downright strange. It didn't help that in her floundering she had managed to tie herself into a pretzel like a tangled puppet.

Upon the green grass the changes could be more clearly perceived. Crimson. A first, continuing, and lasting impression: crimson red.

The tattered feathers and subs of new growth on her shoulders were gone, replaced by disproportionately small wings. Another feature almost lost in the chest fur was the pattern of a circle out of sync with itself - a symbol encompassing the state of Trisys herself.

Furthest tips faded to amber: hooves, palms and fingers of hands, tail tuff, wing tips, and ear tips. As if the body was one size too small so parts of Trisys poked through. Trisys was still figuring out that these extremities were the points capable of feeling pressure. Her horns shone translucent white. The two lower had merged into an upward curve while the third had grown straight, reminiscent of rhino horns. The only part of her that felt... her.

While the body may appear overall the organic one she had possessed an hour previous, a first touch or second glance would confirm otherwise. Her body was cold metal. Hair did not stir for it was sculpted in place, not individual strands. Pairs of horns sweeping horizontal from the collarbone made mockeries of the pair adorning her forehead. Flickers like static discharge, also stained cherry red, might give a perception of being normally astir, yet she had no breath. Eyes their color harvest-moon were as blank as paint. Overall a demonic version of what had been.

As helpers tried to sort her body out, Trisys continued to try untangling her new limitations. Sight was bothering her greatly. The field was restricted, virtually no peripheral vision. And it wouldn't change. She had not appreciated how much movement her eyes made until they did not. Since Trisys still could not control her head, what was right in front of her was all she could see. She needed a break from it. Just a moment's respite.

She could not blink! No breath, no smell, small pressure points - and those too disconnected to coordinate - for touch, and Voices chanting, 'You're like us now. You're like us now.' What could she do to anchor against the growing anxiety coming waves like an incoming tide? Focusing on others always helps. Focus on gratitude. Focus on staying still.

"Thank you," Trisys was earnest in her thanksgiving to Kethara, Cerelassion, and the Khelari for helping straighten her limbs, plus to Lady Aineruda for her liberation. "I cannot move much. Or well." Stating the obvious being a trademark of epic situations. "Jade has his wish." Well, obvious to Trisys. "Exchanging forms is the price for him to live. And he lives! It is a price I chose to pay."

It was another devastation to hear her voice no longer was the double-tone of husky warm earth overlay with rustling leaves. Instead it was only rustling spring leaves echoing faintly as if spoken into an empty aluminum can. From the reaction of someone in front of her, Trisys deduced that mouth had not moved. Her visage was as immobile as a mask. When would the shocks of discovered loss be finished? Trisys boggled.

On the other hand Trisys was relieved to know she could talk. She could hear, she could talk, and she could feel. Though each as small in proportion to before as a single leaf from a century-old oak. All told it was a surprise to be more than a statue.

The spirit of Prosopopoeiasys was that of an evolving winged unicorn. When in solitude with a creature innocent and pure of heart her true form would shape to their unclouded perception. That would no longer be. Shapeshifting was another lost attribute. Her outward form was locked into that of the mechanical satyr for good.

"Um...okay." the Khelari gave a nod, kneeling over Trisys with concern. Her eyes wandered up and down her new body, "I'm not going to pretend I understood all that, so I'll just move on to the important stuff right now: do you need medical...or mechanical assistance, or will you be well? How can we help...?"