0therpearl - Tumblr blog

[0therpearl]

I made a Caves of Qud animatic!

[0therpearl]

Not entirely happy with the smudgy background, but it’s 11pm, gonna leave it there and hit the sack. + how do you like them apples, baboons!

[0therpearl]

I’m sincerely sorry for the lack of updates here; As much as I want to play Qud and keep drawing updates for it, I can’t right now. Ya girl got carpal tunnel syndrome a while ago and it’s only gotten worse— Typing and drawing are painful right now. When it abates (and I’m confident I can do so without further harm), I’ll pick back up on my adventures.

[0therpearl]

I knit my injuries with the life stolen from the Seeker as I walk. Even with the Rusted Archway on the horizon, the hike feels like it takes weeks.

Sun’s getting low. I can just make out the movement amid the ruins — pigs, vines, centipedes. Other bugs don’t much care for me, but I’ve got bullets to spare for any that’d turn their fangs my way.

When I arrive, I hit the place like the wrath of the sultanate.

This is simple. Take out the pigs first, dance away from the slower bugs, and keep my distance from the pricklers. They’re not too dangerous alone. Only cost a bullet or two a pop to clear, but unlike the livid creeper vines, they don’t follow.

It’s dusk as I clear out the threats from the top floor. The few scratches I have on me are filled in by the life I steal from a wayward goat. I butcher what’s left for a meal... Though I scarcely feel hungry after I drink ‘em dry like that.

Dark sets in, and my torches are starting to dwindle. Rather than head below I decide to plunder the old lockers for what I can. A good blade, a sturdy shawl...

What’s this?

Jackpot.

[0therpearl]

undefined

ehehehehehe.

EHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!

ehe. ehehe. ehehehehehehe!

ehehehehe.

eeeheeheeheeheeheehee.

[0therpearl]

Worse comes to worse, and at my lowest point, the hunters find me.

The worst kind.

No use drawing on her. Moon Time is dry on ammo. The Seeker of the Sightless Way already feels my psyche, already knows I’ve got the gifts they want to pluck from my head. 

Soon as I twitch a feeler, they’re going to try to rip my mind from me.

She moves faster. Trying to shatter my mind — tear the me from the meat.

I move smarter. The Seeker’s pumping out pure vitality, so I open up and let it in. I make it mine.

Then I drink

her

dry

... 

Much better.

[0therpearl]

Ow.

Fuckin’ slugsnout.

Damn pig’s left me in a bad way. Lost, bleeding, damn near death... Cold. But I feel like I’m on the precipice of something. If I can just catch my breath, patch myself up — Maybe I can remember what it is.

Need to get myself some vittle and make my way back to Alaazoshan.

[0therpearl]

“Okay, lack-salt. It’s on.” This fool just ruined my damn coat.

I hit him hard, and he’s too nervous to throw them bombs right in my face. Blocks a few good swings with his horns, then one catches the neck, and he’s down.

“Shh. It’s over.”

[0therpearl]

Somewhere along the way, I end up riverside. Between the holes in space-time and getting turned around, I can’t tell Hamas from a hole in the ground. Thick bank of dark fog has rolled in and there’s no telling north without eyes on the Spindle, ‘least until I get my hands on a compass.

For a sip of freshwater, this fish kindly gives me directions. Short jaunt across the jungle and I’ll be where I need to be.

Then I get lost.

Ah, shit.

The goat’s got a fistful of explosive seeds and ten kinds of bone to pick with me. I eat three of the things before I can close the gap.

[0therpearl]

libndink ehehehe >:3

I wake up. I get a move on.

I run into a pack of them hyena-folk halfway back to the village. Ain't much to be said — they want steel and my water, they get my lead. This one's friendly, seems like.

"Moon and sun, critter." I tip my hat. "Tell your folk I'd rather save my slugs if you please."

[0therpearl]

@somaisbatman​ I’m glad you asked! A lot of things in sequence, but I’ll set the scene for you.

Earlier in this run, I accepted a quest from the village Elder of Tuwan here to retrieve a special spine fruit which evokes “Harvestry”, a skill that the cult of Tuwan highly values.

(How this particular fruit is more “harvestric” than any other fruit is beyond me.)

While I was about, I ran across a being called “Or” in a cavern somewhere. Or is an alternate version of myself... Or perhaps, I’m an alternate version of Or. It’s a fickle thing— mostly illusory, but given to flights of chaotic fancy when I collapse certain waveforms of reality that differ from the home reality from which it hails.

That is to say, if I were to coin a name for a place or thing that Or wouldn’t, or if I were to share water with someone important, or complete a vital quest...

... Which I did here. Or had opinions about me returning the Harvestric spine fruit, and promptly imploded. From the gap it left in causality, three items from my side-lives spilled forth:

An artifact I have yet to identify, a section of piping full of algae-rich saltwater, and a dreamcrungle.

Then I got dreamcrungled.

Woke up in the body of an electric spider deep underground, forced to either emerge victorious in its struggles or awake fitfully to my own life forever scarred by the trauma of experiencing being stepped on as a bug.

Standard dream quest stuff, you know how it goes.

[0therpearl]

I am Sisithys. In this acid-cave deep underground, I hunt. All the worms and crabs of this world are my cousins; Peaceful because they know my superiority.

I am a hunter. A predator. An apex atop eight legs. A thousand volts are mine to command. I leave my lessers in search of a worthy hunt... It finds me.

Human. A vast lumbering beast that wraps itself in the weaving-work of my kin, and wields false fangs of steel and carbide. The fool thinks it’s after me. I let it approach, feigning cowardace as the charge builds within me...

AND I POUNCE! 

My fangs are death! My lightning is vengeance! No human stands a chance, and in moments I am victorious, and I am sated. I am...

I-

I, U-Un, am awake. What in tarnation just happened?

[0therpearl]

I wake from the dream that was “U-Un”. I am Sisithys, electrofuge. Weaver of webs, and eater of lesser bugs. I am in a cave. Hunger spurs my octet of legs into a mad scramble.

[0therpearl]

Roll back into Tuwan to tell the harvest folk about their needs. Elder Momuushri-Kat, the old fella with the hot hands, ain’t in his usual place. Seems he needed a rest too.

For some ungodly reason, the old man is sleeping in a crib.

“Hey old-timer. Got yer spine fruit.”

“... Thanks.”

A moment later, Or takes a trip elsewhere.

The old man runs off, and I don’t blame him. What in the hell is that?!

I-

!

...

[0therpearl]

One damn distraction after another. I can see where Qud gets its reputation — when the wildlife and the bandits aren’t trying to suck my exoskeleton dry, the flowers pick up the slack.

Before I leave Alaazoshan, I seek out “Harvestary” hour-poster bed. Right in the middle of the main thoroughfare, parked out where the dirt’s packed down. Don’t know how that’s meant to represent harvestry. Though I know the curtains will matter little to the clairvoyant folk of the town, I still pull them shut and hang my hat on the post.

I fall asleep before my antennae hit the pillow.

I wake up. Could have sworn the moon was crescent tonight. It’s-

It’s...

Please, no, I-

...

I wake up. Time to head back to Tuwan.

[0therpearl]

the problem with having started this blog to rekindle my interest in deep focus on a Qud playthrough is, now i’m deeply focused and have to temper myself to not just spill hours of time into playing without posting about it.

[0therpearl]

Alaazoshan, Waning Salt Sun.

Another damn vortex.

Apparently that strange shadow of me gets excitable at times. Soon as I walked in and realized where I was, it folded in on itself and started sucking up rock and trees all over. Damn near sucked me in too! But I sidestepped, and took to looking over the village I was sent to in search of a bed.

Curious place, this. A damn maze in stone — I can sense the mind of psychics, but their power is unfamiliar and unlike my own. I wonder for some time how the hell anyone navigates this space...

And artwork elucidates. The maze is home to clarivoyants, just the folks that can look upon the mess with perfect understanding. Thing of beauty, that.

I take a nap on their big bed and don’t waste time with pleasantries. A figure of note in the village, Ooh-oo-OO, asks my help finding a ruin. Something I’d be fine to do... And the ape lets slip something interesting.

One of them hyena-bandits nearby has an old-era shield strapped to their arm, name of Stopsvalinn. Now that’ll fetch a tall drink of water. You’ve got a deal, Ooh-oo-OO. I’ll find your ruin at first light.