The Boar pt. III

QUOTE

## Index

The Boar pt. I - Champions of Fire and Vine

The Boar pt. II - Ozoma Ashes and The Exaltation of Life

## Blackmaw Alms

True to the legends, The Boar had been imbued with the blessing of his land, far more than any mortal vessel should contain. As if he had drunk the hunger and fury of Mount Ozoma itself, the boar was ravenous and craved the hunt. Landing with volcanic force, his blades diced and obliterated everything they touched as beast, lumber, stone and elemental littered the ground in smaller fragments than when he met them.

While his mind was sharp and rested, he sought fitting outlets for the anger that welled and burned within. As if an extension of the volcano he patrolled, in his wake The Boar left nothing but remains and ruin with an ever determined drive to keep his tribe and land safe. For many days he would continue, taking on frenzied beasts and invoked Salament in increasing numbers, often by the fourth day a dozen at a time. Each time he would emerge victorious with wounds that did not phase him. Unable to feel pain, desire sleep, ingest adequate nourishment or acquire fatigue, the damage was constantly being administered with no perception of the repercussions. Over time, he was transcending the blessings of mortality in a body that would not allow it.

After a week, the hunt had not slowed. Fatigue that should have set in days ago stayed absent but the effects on The Boar's body were apparent. His muscles were tightly defined and gaunt from dehydration while his veins swelled around his form. His eyes were bloodshot and the dark circles around them gave him the overall appearance of an anabolically blessed raccoon with swords with a neurotic disposition to match. His mind was leaving him and although he required sleep to recover his senses, the elixir would not allow him such a respite, only the hunt.

Throughout his wake of devastation, The Boar only perceived his way forward for his next kill, never looking back. As such, the tracking of this weapon was not a difficult task to the shadow in the trees that was Layla. Deftly hopping from bow to branch and back to bow again in pursuit of her quarry, she was ever vigilant for her opening. The landscape around her was mentally mapped like the back of her eyelids, often travelling through the trees like this with them closed just to prove to herself she could. Watching him run through a boulder that ruptured at his impact, his proximity to one of her favourite traps gave her a thankful grin.

She rushed ahead of him, the brute slowing down to cut down a few Salament that were spawning from a couple of open vents. Once his blades cleaved their bindings asunder, they seemed to drink in their essence, licking up the lifeblood of Ozoma from its oozing wound. Layla dropped within his peripheral vision and despite her expectations, attempted reason.

"I need you to come with me."

With an arched back and haggard frame, his eyes were hollow, sunken and void of sentience. As if simultaneously staring before, into and through her, he lurched his weight like a zombie into an immediate charge. This reaction of his was much more expected and knowing that he would run her down, she knew that time was in short supply.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

>Capture and removal to Blackmaw Sanitorium,

> Experimentation w/ mind slug

> Explosion of holding cell including guards. Mental Projection of self to another land, procurement of helmet

> Bucket of Acid

> Saved by a receptionist.

> Bandaged up, 'renamed' on chart and hidden in a bed