NPCYou try to shove the head away from you, but your hand veers off. Your palms feel nothing, because the skin on them is just some unwieldy meat cover forcibly pulled onto your frame. Your fingers curl up of their own accord.
YOU[Push the horse away]
YOU[Roll to the side]
YOU[Shout]
NPCYour shout is as thin as a death cry and unbearably shrill. Still, it is just strong enough to make the creature stop trying to bite you and back off.
NPCMemories that are not your own tear into your mind, replacing your thoughts. It occurs to you that someone else used to scare all the monsters away — a big brother, so funny and always smiling. With some effort, you manage to force his gentle face out of your head.
YOU[Push the horse away]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Roll to the side]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Shout]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Focus your gaze]
NPCSlowly, your eyes begin to put together a sordid image: everything around you is brown and disgusting. Hay, wood, blood, dirt... horse: the trapdoor you jumped down has led you to a stable.
NPCA stable is a place for peasants, not sovereigns. But, somehow, your body remembers the scents of poverty. Your consciousness expands heavily, like sick lungs. You remember a large basket, bundles of food clutched in your hands, and the grateful smiles of the hungry.
YOU[Push the horse away]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Roll to the side]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Shout]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Focus your gaze]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Feel your body]
NPCYour hand finds something on your chest, something so cold it burns your fingers. For a moment, you think that it is the real you — the shard of your will lost in the flow — but it turns out to be nothing more than a thassertium necklace.
NPCAs you look at it, the crystal stares back at you with its still blue eye. The fool's wrinkled face suddenly emerges from the reflection, and his gloating voice seems to hang at the edge of your awareness. This body remembers pain and electrified air... Something bad.
YOU[Push the horse away]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Roll to the side]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Shout]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Focus your gaze]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Feel your body]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Rise to your feet]
NPCYou sway, as if from sickness, all your limbs feeling impossibly fragile. Scrawny legs, frail arms — these do not belong to you. This is a costume, and it is not yours: it does not fit your status, it is the wrong size, and it still carries greasy traces of its former owner inside. You are overcome with the urge to tear off your flesh and throw it away like a worn glove.
NPCYour iron will immediately rejects the shameful weakness, and you give yourself an order: to steady yourself and to probe the memories of the previous owner of this body.
NPCTo complete the picture, you have no choice but to look into a nearby water trough at your reflection. You see familiar features: some unnatural force has dragged you out of your body and into that of Maive, Ruoldo's lady-in-waiting. Now that you have spent some time in this stable, you feel a little more accustomed to your new limbs. But where is your own mortal shell?
end of branch
YOU[Rise to your feet]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Feel your body]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Rise to your feet]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Focus your gaze]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Feel your body]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Rise to your feet]continues where this line first appears above
Entry point 2 of 7
NPCYou gather your will and repress the desire to peel all the skin off. The mad impulse recedes. The memories that linger in this body may yet prove useful.
NPCTo complete the picture, you have no choice but to look into a nearby water trough at your reflection. You see familiar features: some unnatural force has dragged you out of your body and into that of Maive, Ruoldo's lady-in-waiting. Now that you have spent some time in this stable, you feel a little more accustomed to your new limbs. But where is your own mortal shell?continues where this line first appears above
Entry point 3 of 7
NPCYour muscles cramp in bitter agony — you could swear you hear the gnashing of bones and the wailing of stretched tendons. The reward for your suffering is a clumsy turn to one side, and then, your strength leaves you once more.
YOU[Push the horse away]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Roll to the side]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Shout]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Focus your gaze]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Feel your body]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Rise to your feet]continues where this line first appears above
Entry point 4 of 7
NPCYou dig unfamiliar nails deep into thin skin, trying to scrape someone else's face off yourself. The pain in your cheeks has a sobering effect. You see blood on your fingers. This may not be your body, but it can still prove useful to you.
NPCTo complete the picture, you have no choice but to look into a nearby water trough at your reflection. You see familiar features: some unnatural force has dragged you out of your body and into that of Maive, Ruoldo's lady-in-waiting. Now that you have spent some time in this stable, you feel a little more accustomed to your new limbs. But where is your own mortal shell?continues where this line first appears above
Entry point 5 of 7
NPCThis strange flesh obeys you reluctantly, as if receiving your commands with a delay. It takes all your grit to raise a dainty hand and place it on the horse's muzzle. The animal snorts and tosses the hand away with ease.
YOU[Push the horse away]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Roll to the side]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Shout]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Focus your gaze]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Feel your body]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Rise to your feet]continues where this line first appears above
Entry point 6 of 7
NPCYour attempt at twisting your body around only ends in a racking pain shooting through your back. The most you can achieve is a lurch upward accompanied by a piercing crunch somewhere in the spine.
YOU[Push the horse away]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Roll to the side]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Shout]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Focus your gaze]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Feel your body]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Rise to your feet]continues where this line first appears above
Entry point 7 of 7
NPCYour mind is a loose shard, cast out into nothing, screaming in the voices of thousands of lives... Are they your lives? Or do they belong to another? The blood cracks branch out, biting into every scrap of disjointed thought, ravaging, hungering to shatter what little of your own self remains. A cry gurgles in the depths: a plea to make the torment stop and let you dissolve in unconsciousness... But something has sunk its claws into you, keeping you in place, fusing you back together piece by piece. Methodically and tortuously, it continues to skewer the shreds of your identity onto the thread of existence in an attempt to outpace the all-consuming void.
NPCYour memories of the last several minutes are incoherent and painful. The flash of sorcery, the leap into the unknown, Solomorne shouting something — he gave Glaito an order, but what order was it? Any attempt you make to process what happened only pulls you deeper into unconsciousness.
NPCYou are wrenched suddenly out of oblivion by a blunt, merciless bite. You try to breathe and hear your own ragged wheeze. Sight gradually returns to you, and an angry horse's head emerges from the mist. You are back. You are alive.
YOU[Push the horse away]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Roll to the side]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Shout]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Focus your gaze]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Feel your body]continues where this line first appears above
YOU[Rise to your feet]continues where this line first appears above