Blowing our Zenith Abilities on Pettiness in Heart: The City Beneath (2024)

the head witch embodies the heartsblood and the chaos and meat-transformation of forms--she had become an entire structure and we were in it speaking with her. the witches hate the bees and the structures they form, they are too orderly with their hexcombs and coordination.

deep apiarist me was tired of being insulted by the witches, over and over again, killing a bee of mine here, a bee of mine there. i did my best to respect their customs over and over, and helped procure mass amounts of meat for their celebration. i was communicating my plan to understand the Heart, to scribe it and formulate it, to share that formulation. she introduced an infinite complexity into the formula, which triggered a major mind fallout in my character.

tired of being taken as a fool, i reached out and touched her face, which was part of a throne. i am unheart, an annihilation (an ability i took), and i unravel some of the heart in her with my touch. her face transforms partially back to a head, her facial nerves restore and scream in agony as they expect the normal anatomy of a skull rather than this flat bone throne surface.

she lashes back too, infecting some of my bees with heartsblood, but, casting unchaos and injecting myself with my fearless blessed toxins, i manage to escape (dangerous roll, manage a 7 and get another major fallout).

i tell the last witch, who escorts me out with fear and hatred, that it was their culture of disdain for my bees that lead to this action. that it was, in a sense, in the same sense as their precious Heart, the very indignity they wanted to suffer.

the bugged up witches hiss and crackle back at me. my companions join me at the edge of exile. the witch who lusted for me, a man of burbling blood and severe insectile grotesqueries, demands a cessation to all insults. when they refuse, his joints harpoon out and burrow into the flesh of everything and everyone who ousted us (zenith: final form).

i take his queue and evoke a massive barrier of crystal and honey around the entire witch’s hallow, suffocating them from The Heart. the witchflesh buildings will wither and rot, and none of their ambulatory living may escape. this is my domain now and there will be no exiles and no refuge (zenith: dimensional bastion).

the sweet sanguine scents awaken irresistible urges in our hungry gnoll. he begins his feast on the witches; their hearts still beat as his jaws crunch through their ribs; their organs ooze over his lips like runny egg yolk. as spells sizzle against his fur, he stretches and stretches and stretches until his body is most things, most things now mostly myriad mirrored maws that munch on these harpooned witches all at once (zenith: legendary beast).

our deadwalker, our beautiful young foster child, now shocked by the horrifying display, accepts the gentle lullaby of death and prays for heaven (zenith: sunder the veil). miracles bound down into this land and up springs life: trees, glades, and beautiful innocent creatures. as he passes on into the gates of heaven, he leaps into the clasping arms of his grandmother.

food aplenty sprouted from our child’s miracle, our beast loses all semblance of self and other. there is only meat. and soon, his innumerable iron jaws tear apart his own strained bones and overburdened skin. he has become The Beast and he has slain himself.

the whole region, preserved perfectly in my bastion, sinks deeper into The Heart: a realm of un-Heart now neighbors with The Heart, Itself.

my body splits into countless bees; my mind warps apart into the ephemeral whispers of their wings. the lusty man’s chitin sheds and his body collapses, but his mind fills the space with me.

bodiless, bound, and eternal, i finally find him rather attractive.