Re:Cursed

Chapter 161 - 157: All Eyes and Tendrils

"You… intend to mutate further?" Tarchon's gruff, metallic voice sounded almost reluctant as he once more holds Nyxala against the force of the tunnel slowing.

"Of course." Her fingers traced the line of her wings. "I've wanted to expand myself since the Dark Star collapsed. Now that the Trials are over, there's nothing to hold me back."

"Not even your humanity?"

The tunnel opened to the Technocult temple, but Nyxala didn't move. With a raised brow, she looked Tarchon up and down. No word needed to be said.

The grinding whine of gears snapped in place with a click. "I may have replaced most of myself with machine, but do not mistake that as forfeiture of humanity. My form. My mind. They remain whole."

A burst of steam released from a pair of valves in his neck. It whistled with heat. His eyes — framed by the expanding plume — bore into Nyxala's.

"You may be immune to the Madness of your cursed mutations, but indulging in that which lacks order shall only invite rot."

With each spoken word, Nyxala's frown deepened. She stepped past Tarchon only to stop and twist. Her voice came out hushed and harsh. Only Technocultists could come here, but she didn't want any to overhear.

"They were taken from me once. Hidden, filed down or severed for the sake of a human shape. They were the reason for my suffering. For the longest time, I thought they made me a monster. Maybe I am. But I have come to realise that these mutations are part of my soul. Human or not, I will never reject myself. I will embrace whatever form I take."

The words had left her lips more resolute then she felt. While she was excited to open herself to mutations, there remained uncertainty surrounding exactly what she would become. The changes to her body had been mostly helpful, but there was no certainty that would continue. Her slime feet already changed the way she had to walk… and not explicitly for the better.

All along her core name, the branching cracks hid countless mutations. Whether she chose to accept them or not, they would grow in. Overtake her body. It may take months for some, years for others, but they were each an unstoppable eventuality.

Well, unless she were to die.

It was daunting to see how many alterations her body was fated to go through. The human body was only so large, so how would they all manifest? Were there other mutations for her hands which integrated or fought for dominance with her claws? Or did each change already have a set part of her body to alter? Was she predetermined?

Her greatest fear was that, despite how helpful her individual mutations were, she was on the path towards a fat ball of limbs that left her unable to accomplish anything from a sheer lack of cohesion.

That fear wouldn't stop her though.

Another hiss rolled off Tarchon's form and he steeped back into the tunnel. "I am not here to stop you from doing to yourself as you wish. We will get you another." He gestured to her armband. "But know that this path will be counterproductive to keeping you hidden. It is simple enough to keep S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘ from reaching you, here, but the same cannot be said should the pinnacle cults discover what you hide."

Nyxala pursed her lips as the wall began to close between them.

"Do only what will benefit you most."

The tunnel closed and crashed into motion with Tarchon's final word. No time for Nyxala to respond. She wanted to snap back and tell him what need was there for her to appear in public anymore? She was frustrated because she knew there was legitimacy to his advice, even if tinged in the Technocult's love of all things orderly.

She bit her knuckle as she stared through the racing wall. A loud scratching accompanied thin chitinous shavings that curled off her front row of teeth. Whipping her hand from her mouth, she found a pair of divots in the knuckle.

Nyxila had managed to break the habit of biting her cheek only by using her hard fingers as substitute. Apparently, this latest evolution pushed her teeth beyond the defence of her chitin.

She clacked her teeth. No matter how loud or satisfying a sound it made, it wasn't nearly as calming as having something to gnaw.

As she made her way through the temple to her small room, Nyxala snapped up a finger-length bullet from a crate. Fingers broke apart as her claws extended. With a snip, she tossed the explosive charge and bit the bullet.

Smoke immediately bubbled from her mouth with the hiss of burning metal. Acid ate into the slug, but not so fast she couldn't wedge it between her teeth.

Technocultist made, it was probably good metal, yet it gave way like butter. Well… hard butter. It offered just enough resistance to be somewhat satisfying.

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She took a handful.

Tarchon wasn't wrong that she would be safer holding back on the mutations. With war flaring between five cults, there was a very good chance she'd be required to identify herself — or at least her allegiance — should she wander the depths of Coral. It would not be so easy as to wear a full-body cloak to slip past harbinger patrols. Even if such attire was common.

So… nothing obscene. Nothing that people could notice immediately through a thick hood. So that meant her face needed to remain mostly unaltered. No eye mutations. More limbs were also probably going to cause problems. They altered her form too much. She'd been lucky her tentacles and wings were both very good at curling up against her chest, but how could she hide some random extra set of arms that sprouted from her sides?

That said… she was going to grow her tail. That was not up for debate.

Nyxala was locked away in her claustrophobic room soon enough. The temple was not as quiet as it had been the day she'd arrived, but the war still stole the Technocultists' time. So far, she'd had nothing besides curious — mostly stoic — glances her way. She was happy with the space given to her.

She hopped on the bunk that stole half the room and settled on her knees. It felt more like a sack of nuts and bolts than a mattress should, but Nyxala was already lost in the touch of her her name.

Since reaching the fourth evolution, her name sense had grown far more responsive. She never felt sluggish when searching a name before, but now that this new quality had opened to her, going back would be impossible.

Her ethereal touch raced across the nightmarish mass of corruption that was her core name, finding each of the fissures and cracks that were a mutation waiting to open. The sense she got from each was, thankfully, much easier to parse than previously… albeit only to an extent. She was trying to see through frosted glass where the light on the other side gave a clear silhouette, rather than without a light at all.

The first mutation she'd had her eye on was a replacement for her ears. With what Tarchon said, she wouldn't have considered it, but her improved sense told her it held a low profile. Similar size to her current ears, though with a very different shape.

Nyxala had found it annoyingly common that her eardrums burst. From the responses she'd gotten through the crack, she was almost certain this mutation would solve that little problem.

With a touch too much excitement, her mental fingers slunk into the crack, and tugged. She met resistance. No, it was more than that. The mutation refused to open.

Right… it had only been a few weeks since she'd forced her heart to mutate, yet she had forgotten. While the mutations that came from her past life — from Oth — could be torn open with the same ease she opened her depths of corruption, the others… she had to force.

Good thing she combined Gov̝a into her core name. After her battle against Sekhhath'Ra, she had come to realise just how important soul extensions could be. The pharaoh used his to straight up neutralise curses. Nyxila herself attacked the soul directly. If she had to face someone with a similar ability, she wanted a way to defend against it. Adding weight too her metaphorical touch seemed like a good idea.

And it certainly helped to open her mutations faster than they otherwise would have.

The crack strained against her touch. A dozen light snaps were joined by sudden pain through her head. She paused, but the pain was slow to leave. Her ears ached. A muffled whine was suddenly all she could hear as an uncomfortable clogged sensation sunk in.

Her soul touch dug back into the crack, pulling harder in a desperate effort to put an end to the sickly sensation.

The pain abated instantly, but what replaced it wasn't much better. Deep in her ear, she could feel something moving. Growing. It was a worm in her eardrums. It squirmed, digging through the sides of her head until, with a burst that was both painful and extremely relieving, it was no longer only inside.

Nyxala brought a hand to her head, and flinched when she felt something growing from her ear-canal. Only, it wasn't her hand that flinched. A pair of sensitive little tendrils curled back as she felt more worms grow in her skull.

Rather than grow through the already filled holes of her ears, these worms pushed against the side of her head. Her finger traced the side of her head, just behind the side of her jaw. The skin contorted. It pushed against her touch, tearing the skin in a way that should be agonising, but wasn't.

The same happened behind her helix. A lump of skin pushed out and pressed against the back of her ear.

The lumps continued to push outwards. She could feel the skin tearing from muscle beneath the surface until even her ear felt loose. Suppressing a shiver at the sensation, Nyxala grabbed at her ear — which suddenly lacked a sense of touch — and pulled.

It came free far too easily.

Fluid dribbled down her neck, and she quickly jumped off her bed to contain the spill, only to yank her ear fully off the antenna.

Nyxala stared down at the lump of flesh that had always been attached to the side of her head, now sitting in her palm. There was blood, but not nearly as much as there should be. Instead, there was a lot of clear fluid. Like that of a blister.

Sound was back. But it was strange. Alien. Nyxala didn't know how to parse the new information running through her head.

Touching the side of her head, she felt the tendril flinch away again, only now it was three. They curled back, hooking around and behind her head. Sound dulled with the motion. She couldn't feel any hole where her ear canal had been.

Ten seconds passed and Nyxala found herself in the empty communal bathroom staring in the mirror.

From the side of her head, three distinct antenna brushed outward. Each was reminiscent of a feather, with small tendrils sprouting above and below all along their length. Each tendril twitched at any sudden movement, and she realised she could feel it… even though she made no sound.

Nyxala grabbed her other ear, and tore it from her head. She watched the antennae spring outward, and the dozens of small tendrils unfurling from each. Now both sides of her head matched. The skin surrounding the strange sensory organs was raw, but it would heal soon enough. The antennae themselves continued the shade of her skin, yet they were anything but; skin wasn't this sensitive. Her tiny tendrils were different though. They were a shade of coral red that almost seemed to shimmer under the harsh bathroom light.

She clicked her fingers. Each tendril quivered in a very noticeable wave. The sound was… well, she knew it was a click, but it didn't sound like it. It didn't even feel like she was hearing, rather than a new sense entirely.

…I'm not going to have to relearn how to understand speech, am I?

Her eyes dropped to the pair of ears in her hands. Shed like a snake would its skin.

"Eh." She shrugged, tossing her ears in the trash chute. "Time for the tail."

Thankfully, she understood herself.