Tourist attractions | Glowfic Constellation

once-dreamed-of

He snickers.

The mottled beast successfully scampers to hide on the underside of the bridge, making sad sounds of pain. It seems to have no trouble attaching its feet to the underside of the bridge.

He is free to proceed.

once-dreamed-of

He proceeds in a somewhat better mood!

The bridge harbors no new terrors for him.

The street past it is covered in moss and mold, and is noticeably more overgrown than the previous city block. Silver thorns poke out from ugly grey-green gunk of the street, and now also from the walls of every building. Among the thorns are glowing flowers the color of flame.

once-dreamed-of

Pretty flowers. They're probably horrible in some way. He sets one on fire just to see what happens.

It consumes the fire, brightening significantly and looking no worse for the wear.

once-dreamed-of

Well that's not promising.

The flower stays at its new brightness level, but nothing else happens.

once-dreamed-of

Uh-huh.

Well, what's the worst that could happen? It's fire. Fire is fine. He keeps walking.

The fiery flowers pulse dangerously with every step he takes, faintly at first, and brighter as he walks closer and closer.

once-dreamed-of

Yeah he still cares more about avoiding the thorns.

He can avoid the thorns!

But he cannot avoid the thorns and avoid the flowers. When he steps too close to one, it explodes. Then the next nearest one explodes. The rest give in to peer pressure. It is all very fiery, but the fire is not the problem. The problem is the concussive blast from two dozen exploding flowers, one of them he supercharged himself.

He might have trouble avoiding the thorns under these conditions.

once-dreamed-of

- but see, there's fire.

And just like he has an enchanted sword to absorb excess spellfray, he enchanted himself to absorb excess fire when he got tired of narrowly escaping death by spontaneous combustion whenever he lost his temper. Death by spontaneous combustion is no longer a concern, but fire still fuels him like spellfray fuels his sword.

He never figured out how to make it not hurt, or he'd go around on fire all the time.

The explosions tug at his clothes and ruffle his hair, but he keeps walking, unaffected. As far as he's concerned they might as well be a light breeze.

Then he will not have trouble avoiding the thorns under these conditions, and the flowers probably feel very impotent.

The fire also does a number on the moss disguising the thorns, so this street is now kind of toothless if he pays attention to where the thorns themselves are. He is free to walk unimpeded.

once-dreamed-of

What lovely flowers.

And so impotent! So very, very impotent!

It's a lovely walk, until after he passes under an overhanging balcony, where he feels something sharp sting his shoulder, then numbness everywhere else.

He might also notice a total inability to move any of his limbs.

once-dreamed-of

- what the fuck -

He doesn't have time to limply collapse to the ground, because he's being rudely pulled back, until he collides painlessly with a wall, then up. Through a stray set of silver thorns (which hurt just the same) that break off into him, and into the waiting jaws of something that blended in with the wall. From context, this is probably of the same species as the earlier beast that failed to accost him on the bridge.

It sinks sharp claws into his shoulders and begins attempting to eat him. Head first. It has rows and rows and rows of tiny, serrated teeth, and a mouth that opens far, far too wide.

once-dreamed-of

And now he can move again.

Maybe he should just go around constantly on fire.

The creature gets in one bite before he magically tears it in half.

Yep, that's half of a creature like the one that he upset on the bridge.

Of course, now that it's dead, it is no longer keeping him here on the bottom of a balcony, and he and both halves of the ex-creature are unceremoniously dropped.

Without regard for thorns.

once-dreamed-of