Lt. Col. John Sheppard [Stargate: Atlantis] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ferriswheelsandfootball) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
apocalypsehowcomm2023-09-04 07:00 pm
ferriswheelsandfootball) wrote in apocalypsehowcomm2023-09-04 07:00 pm
ferriswheelsandfootball) wrote in apocalypsehowcomm2023-09-04 07:00 pm
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If either were to be lessened by being able to watch in the man's mind, then who are either of them to protest. He adds what might be taken as a reassurance about the wards he had just cast.
"It will prevent accidental intrusion and interruption. Yet it does not entrap us within. You are free to leave when or should you wish." Indeed if there's any instinct among Sheppard's Hunt instincts, both the words and the sense to the surroundings ring true. There is no sense that the spells prevent escape.
As for the fear? All is welcome, particularly as it can be harnessed however slight, however pale to fuel what they are about to achieve. Elidibus won't miss the opportunity, even if he has to resist the temptation to further it.
He must remember the true goal. Thus briskly and with Emet-Selch's query a perfectly timed distraction to turn to, the silver haired man focuses on Sheppard. His head tilts in thought.
"Nothing has changed from my original estimation," Elidibus finally answers. He lifts his hand again and begins to gather his own magic. Two quite similar forms of magic, yet patroned by two very different Fears. It may add a soft hum of discordance at first.
"I will take the afflicted arm, then I will join the rest of my magicks to your efforts," he assures his colleague. To Sheppard, Elidibus offers a word of advice.
"Brace yourself. You will likely experience some vertigo and discomfort." Apparently aside from the mental shock of literally seeing your arm chopped off with magic. An act which seems to only need a casually outstretched hand to gather his magic into a defined spell.
This time it seems a simple light that coalesces into visual representation of the magic and much more opaque than the transulcent wards of earlier. Predominately white, someone looking closely with the dubious privilege of being able to see what's about to happen might notice traces of a green like spring grass and a blue closer to tropical waters as the shallows give way to depths.
Elidibus, who carries himself with the demeanor of someone doing nothing more than making a vague gesture with his hand, does give Sheppard a bit of time to brace as suggested... or flee the room if all's to be honest. But should he stay then the globe of light makes the journey from its starting point to the precise location where the transformation of the man's arm halted and humanity remained. It forms a band and settles in place. It cannot be... felt, exactly. Not like a pressure or something that triggers a sense of touch. But there is something akin to stillness, coupled by just a hint of sharp and finally soothing ever so fleeting.
There won't be any sense of constriction. Not even that numb tug one might expect from nerve-numbed flesh being severed. A strange sense of... unravelling (to be sure there is no trace of the transformed flesh at its very root left to corrupt and hinder) at the area between human and crab. The glowing light flows town to encompass the arm like a shell. And then, as abruptly as a light switch, the weight and balance of it being simply gone is thrust upon Sheppard not unlike a sense vertigo.
With just a brief flick from Elidibus, the crab appendage is then surrounded by what appears to be purplish chains constructed of energy - one must be careful to seal away such dubious curses- before disappearing. Stored away for... later.
"All is in order," Elidibus says to Emet-Selch. He is ready to join his remaining power with his colleague's for the creation magicks.
Earlier, the two powers, two different Fears, seemed at first discordant. Such would make sense, no? The Eye and its hunger for knowledge. The Dark, which might well manifest as fearing what knowledge may lie within it. But whether some practice, the familiarity the two have for one another or a mixture of both the two powers have blended together. Now?
As if never at odds, it hums in the background, a subtle siren's song of the dark Abyss which holds rich and tantalizing knowledge to be claimed at its darkest and most terrifying depths.
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Other than a slight nod at both Emet-Selch and Elidibus, he’s silent from the beginning, his eyes wide, his breathing just this side of rapid, evidence of the fear that burns within. But he’s a soldier through and through and he knows how to handle being afraid, knows how to deal with it.
Though there’s nothing in his training or experience that can prepare him for this.
Despite everything that’s happened to him, despite magic being, well, normal now, despite being a Hunt Avatar, seeing magic used like this is fascinating. Shocking. Scary.
Kinda cool.
His eyes are wide as the glowing globe of light forms a band and…there’s a sensation.
It’s weird.
It’s not pain exactly, but he gasps a little anyway, the sensation so strange it’s like he doesn’t know how to react to it. A stillness, a sharpness, a soothing, and then an unraveling.
And then the weight of it is quite suddenly gone.
He does feel a weird sort of sudden vertigo, almost making him sway but he doesn’t dare move in case he messes something up and loses a shoulder, too.
The crab arm is wrapped in a magical ribbon and then…it’s gone.
John looks down in numb horror as he sees…nothing, where his arm should be. He thought he was prepared for seeing it, feeling it…despite knowing that a new arm is being readied, but when faced with the reality, well.
There’s a visceral, instinctive repulsion at the sight of it not being there, and the numbness of it not being there—
If anyone is snacking on his fear right now, they probably just got the all you can eat buffet.
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Instead, he turns to his own, the background hum of his own Dark-fueled powers rising as he turns his thoughts to the creations of centuries ago. Reaches back past memories of the flawed echoes he had seen recreated in the technology of Garlemald to long-forgotten Allag, and their miracles of technology melded to flesh.
It looks like nothing, at first. Merely a sense of power coming from Emet-Selch's direction as he pulls holds the concept firm in his mind. (Metal, wrought thin, to serve as skin. A network of cables, to serve as muscles and to carry the signal that would otherwise have animated a natural arm. Joints, at both elbow and each of the fingers, mechanical in nature though otherwise the equal of any flesh-and-bone hand.) One that - as described - might well sound almost impossible to manage, and yet there is no outward sign of difficulty or strain in Emet-Selch's expression. Instead, he merely glances over at Sheppard before adjusting the concept he holds in his mind such that it is more in keeping with the man's natural arm.
And there he holds it, power and concept both held in readiness until Elidibus' signal.
It's only after the crab arm falls away and Elidibus seals it that anything happens. There's a brief nod at Elidibus' words and then Emet-Selch reaches out to join their power together. It's a sudden thing, too, the Eye and the Dark harmonizing into one eerily single note of the knowledge in the darkness depths, of the knowledge that surely must be waiting in those fathomless depths and then barely as soon as Sheppard has had time to react to the sudden loss of his arm than something else is there.
An arm, real and solid, for all that it is very clearly not one of flesh and blood. An impossible arm, and yet one that is, the fact only barely given enough time to be recognized before the magic brushes against where the crab arm has only recently been.
It is not a comfortable feeling, as a chill like unto the darkest depths of the void brush against Sheppard's shoulder. And yet there is no pain. Only that crawling chill, as the magic seeks out the nerves it is to connect to. The sharp almost-sting of nerves being relit, pricking across flesh as the arm anchors itself, tendrils of metal sinking into his skin as painlessly as everything else.
And then... it is done, and with one last dramatic flourish (and a quick tug on the fear Sheppard has so kindly offered) Emet-Selch covers the attachment point and the tendrils both with one last covering of the same metal 'skin' as the rest. No sense in not at least making some after to keep it aesthetically clean.
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Well there is the matter of seeking to coax the Fear that empowers his gifts here into something... hmm, harmonious? Useful to an end? But there's really only so much of that he could hope to influence. Particularly with two other patron Fears at play.
Think of it more like purposefully suggesting a way to manifest that the Fear itself would find agreeable as well. Nothing at all sinister here. And certainly not within Elidibus's control as to whether he'd ultimately succeed.
In the end, the arm is certainly not one of flesh and blood. It is definitely metal, with a light tracing lines as if there were some power source deep within. Yet it doesn't seem cold by any means. Nor does it weigh too heavily. Perhaps some of this is because of the presence of sensation that seems communicated as well as Sheppard's other human arm.
Sure, one might notice a difference if one were to focus but it's not extreme.
And it is possible that the weight of the crab arm that was there for months is throwing off estimation of what this new artificial arm should feel like in comparison but....
Metal - and yes touching it with human fingers would definitely indicate it's metal of some kind - shouldn't be this light.
Nor should it illicit a sensation of feeling any fingers Sheppard tries to poke at it, if such is his inclination. But it is light. It feels very nearly natural. And it will provide sensation.
Elidibus is looking at the newly constructed limb as though stepping back to inspect the overall look of a newly finished craft, rather than a fully working appendage literally conjured into existence with a thought. It may also be worth noting that the whole process, from removal of the former limb to conjuration and attachment of the new, may have taken about five minutes, tops.
He nods and there's a moment of satisfaction.
"Given our restrictions, I'm inclined to believe we could not expect a more favorable outcome," he says to Emet-Selch. Almost cheerfully -and really he's pleased enough with the results- Elidibus then asks a question of Sheppard.
"Does aught seem amiss with it?" There's even a tiny smile permitted.
...
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It takes all his training and experience not to jolt when it happens, when he scarcely has time to process that he’s missing an arm when there is another arm there, but nothing like his original arm nor his crab arm.
It’s the strangest sensation, coupled with what it looks like—it looks cool, honestly, like if he had to choose what a techno-magical arm would look like, this would be it, but the sensations, the chill that drains all heat from him, the prickles, the…tendrils sinking into his skin.
It should hurt. It feels impossible that it doesn’t, like it’s breaking the rules of reality and nature. A gasp escapes him, involuntarily, as much as he wants to squirm away he doesn’t and instead grips his other hand into his leg.
And then it’s done.
And there’s sensation.
John just stares at it, his brain feeling strange, trying to grasp the transition from crab arm to no arm to metal arm all in one go.
“That was…really fast,” he finally says, finding his voice, after licking his lips.
“No, it…it’s perfect. It’s…light.”
He tries to move it upwards a couple of inches and it does, and while expected, it still feels kind of shocking, like his brain is still adjusting to the nerve input, to the lack of the heavy crab arm, to the humanoid shape. He flexes the fingers, and they move just fine.
“This is…” his voice goes dry again. “Wow.”
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Still, it is an arm, and with the spellcraft done, Emet-Selch allows himself to relax slightly. The wards he will leave to Elidibus to take down, though, given that they were his to begin with.
"As it should have been. That is what creation magics are. Creating something using little more than the power of one's mind to shape the aether into the desired form."
It requires rather a lot of aether, of course. But that is something that Emet-Selch feels is rather less important to dwell on.
"And of course it is light. The Allagans who first pioneered the technology would have demanded naught less, and it is from their designs this springs."
no subject
Well maybe 'normal' is a strong word. But still.
"It is meant to function as an arm should," he says, backing up Emet-Selch's comments. "There will be some small differences as the technology is not of this star. It will recover from small cuts and injuries, much as a flesh and blood arm would." That is to say something you could put a bandaid over or maybe a few stitches in? It'll repair over time.
"And to a degree, it will spare you pain and discomfort. As for more considerable damage, it is likely you would have to turn to us for proper repair. Or at least to procure the materials needed to keep it in the condition it is now."
Sure, what's not being said is that it's going to be much harder to get to that level (honestly supernaturally so by this world's standards) but that's a good thing considering any 'need to be created' materials, if their magics can't 'heal' it, would probably make it even more cursed.
Surely though other than that and its appearance, it'll be a perfectly normal arm! Right?
[ By Etheirys standards. ]
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Now that the more...disconcerting, and dare he say, possibly scary part is over, he's finally allowed himself to relax and actually enjoy what he's been given.
Like, he kind of hated magic before? But this right here? This is cool magic.
"I can't believe that it can just repair itself like that." Sheppard taps on the surface with his other hand, running up and down the side, marveling at it.
This is so much better than his crab arm.
And will probably be a perfectly normal arm with no problems.
Except this is this world and nothing comes without strings here.
His jubilant attitude falters a moment.
"You think there'll be a price? I mean, besides the fear you obviously used to create this." He hopes that's all it'll be. The arm seems innocuous enough, what kind of trouble could he get from the arm? Pain, maybe? He can deal with that. Needing to feed on fear more? Annoying, but he can do that, too.