Encounterlogs
Saebyeoks Odd Encounter Sr Novel 250119
Sae-byeok's day takes an unexpected turn when she finds herself transformed into an axolotl, a transition prompted by her contact with a hexed nuclear isotope. Panic-stricken at her sudden inability to breathe air and her rapidly changing physique, she waddles her way to the bathroom, flapping desperately to find water, managing to plunge herself into the toilet for relief. In this cramped, chilly refuge, she telepathically reaches out for help, conveying her urgent predicament of being stuck in an unlikely form, her distress magnified by the discomfort of her new environment and the daunting realization of her transformation.
The arrival of Euphemia brings hope amidst Sae-byeok's despair. Euphemia, upon discovering the chaos in her apartment and the trail leading to the bathroom, decides to perform a decursing ritual to return Sae-byeok to her human form. Despite her initial uncertainty and lack of expertise with such specific curses, Euphemia's determination sees her through the complex preparation and execution of the ritual. Utilizing the link Sae-byeok had with the cursed item and drawing on ancient methods, Euphemia crafts a delicate process of reversal. The ritual, marked by Euphemia's self-sacrifice and the whisper of arcane incantations, culminates in a dramatic reversal of the curse. Sae-byeok, witnessing the careful and meticulous efforts of her cousin, experiences a sudden and splashy return to her human form. Amidst relief and lingering disorientation, she thanks Euphemia, a gesture underscoring her gratitude for being freed from her fish-like prison and marking the end of an extraordinary ordeal.
(Sae-byeok's odd encounter(SRNovel):SRNovel)
[Sat Jan 18 2025]
In a Homely Living Room
The tranquil living room has floor-to-ceiling walls lined in light-colored handmade terracotta Danish bricks, pale polished concrete floors and Douglas fir timber ceilings, and is furnished with a massive leather sectional couch pressed against the corner between the entrance and the kitchen door, allowing for the wrap-around view and luxurious comfort. A low white birch table providing a setting space before it.
The bare raw brick surrounding the fireplace across from the couch is mounted in the central south-western locale of the apartment which serves the dual function of additional heating and the lovely view of flames during the winter months.
A designer has chosen to clad the walls with black painted wood slats, and adding black floating shelves lining the other walls to provide space for a few carefully curated decorative objects. Layered rugs define the seating area and twin floor lamps add symmetry and ambient lighting. The rest of the decor is kept minimal to keep the focus on the architecture of the room.
It is afternoon, about 19F(-7C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky.
(Your target has been hexed and transformed into an animal against their will. Unable to turn back they need to try to find allies who can understand their problem and find a way to undo the curse.
)
Sae-byeok wakes on her back, a lead-lined disk with a nuclear isotope sitting atop her test like a medallion. The smell of dust, paper, and the smallest hint of blood trail from her to the door to 1-0-2.
With a short thought, Sae-byeok sits up. "Annneeoong hasseyoo..." She mutters to a lonesome audience. For all that these places are apartments, they're also buckers- and that lack of sunshine covets her lethargy.
Bunkers. What are buckers, Sae-byeok would think.
Sae-byeok makes an inspection of herself, holding a hand against her chest to make sure the heart still beats. The rhythm seems to think so, but it doesn't inform if she feels dead inside.
Sae-byeok's hand drops like a dead branch to her stomach. The motion does nothing to help her expression.
It was just another, normal day for Sae-byeok. As normal as any day for her could be, with her decisions and interest. Unfortunately for her that disk was more than it seemed and bore with it something upon it's touch. Sae-byeok's waking mind has memories of warm water and swimming, of little things darting around. And when she holds the disk up to her hand she notices something strange:
Her skin was softer, smoother! One would say the healthy treatments working except, it's slightly translucent and she can see her bones and veins beneath. And gosh, it's hard to hold onto the disk with how slippery her skin seems to be, and even her clothing starts to itch. Her face feels odd, and even breathing feels strange, a pressure around the rib cages, a sort of strange itching.
Then around the ears, a tickling sensation, a sudden sharpness of pain in sudden shock of new stimulation - she can see in a wider field of view, lights and colors right through feathery ears. The rest of the transformation is more swift. Sae-byeok's fingers and toes shortening and thickening. Webs spring between them as shoes and socks slip free, becoming webbed. Hands and feet morphing into paddles. Something about the sensation feels right - familiar, merging with the outwards and sudden sprouting of a long, flexible tale from the base of the spine caught tangled in clothes.
Shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, as Sae-byeok's eyes grow and grow, the dim light of the room growing into something luminous and agonizingly dry.
And then as Sae-byeok's sides and neck open up into gills, her transformation complete.
Sae-byeok immediately begins to suffocate. Thankfully, someone left all the doors open.
Sae-byeok flaps. The limbs are wrong- but they also right. Familiar in the wrong way, scratching that same awful itch that every gained sense from arcana seems to intuit upon one's self.
Sae-byeok makes a small, gasping rattle that isn't quite her, and then begins to waddle. Waddle and swim on land towards the southwestern bathroom.
He would, too. Waddle, waddle, waddle a layer of slime that's slowly drying out and leaving the skin dry and uncomfortably itchy. Above looms the sink, the tub, the toilet, and finally the shower looming like a glass skyscraper all shining and gleaming with white and steel. At least Sae-byeok has legs, an efficiency in scrambling. The gills seal shut. It seems that she can hold her breath for a long time, whatever Sae-byeok currently is, and the clothing gets tangled up briefly though she slithers out with relative ease. Still. The GREATEST CHALLENGE YET...
Getting into the water.
There's a plastic stool, and the mat, and someone has left damp towels lying all over the floor like a slob in their hurry to get clean and get to work.
"GUuuugggh." she screams. She's screaming, it just.. Doesn't have vocal chords. But a tribulation of her fins creates a scattered patter like a clap- and it creates movement. The spine- the salvation, but to what end? To where?
Sae-byeok isn't proud that the she usually doesn't end up near a toilet when she tends to vomit. She's not proud that the first thing to cause her to run, er- *flap* to one is that she's suddenly a fish. Striking her head and tail towards the ground, and then flinging them both out to strike the ground like a whip is the motion she chooses, in a panic. To the stool- to the toilet- to-
Sae-byeok is a supernatural fish? Does that work? Stronger than normal fish?
A gurgling, almost hiccuping noise comes from between her lips. It sounds a bit like a very tiny dog attempting to bark. Hiccup. Hick. There's no fins, oddly enough, though the flapping around her neck seems to feel similar and it gives her a strange, distorted sensitivity to the levels of light around her. Sae-byeok launches through the air with grace and strength that belong not-at-all to the small critter she currently is, giving her the ability to LEAP the same distance that... well, a human would easily take a step for.
Still, though! Progress! Everything about her is currently supernatural and strange and there is SPLASH when she ends up in the toilet and able to breath again, gills opening and air flowing in. Perhaps not the cleanest of circumstances but...
It beats the alternative. Moving around in water comes as easily as the breathing does.
Sae-byeok sits in the toilet, tilting her head to look at the hole with one eye. She practices a smile just to see how it feels, and gets a sort of pursed-lipped resignation. Natural mechanics push her in small circle. The need to expend movement within a fight or flight- and then the immediate need to converse it.
Sae-byeok says, telepathy, "Cousin, I am a fish in the toilet. I don't know if I'm in the Nightmare. I'm a fish in the toilet and I can breathe and I never want to leave but my eyes feel weird and normal and I don't know what I'm seeing."
Sae-byeok says, telepathy, "I am in Novel's apartment in the toilet and I can breathe. The pipe is small and I can go but it will take me far and everything is JITTERING."
The water is really too cold for Sae-byeok Like, really too cold. It wasn't so much noticeable earlier in the blind panic but it is FREEZING. Though the native magic she has might help, there, and a further scrutiny of her fingers notices she has little webbed claws. They look like lizard limbs and they're tiny, though she could scramble deeper down into the sewers if she wanted to try that route.
Sae-byeok is a depressed fish. It's not a strange sight. Fish live very depressing lives in small tubs of water. The toilet is a small, small space for a life to live- especially intelligent fish life.
Sae-byeok spins about in thought, scraping about the toilet with her claws like a cat trashing in the bath.
A noise, from the southwest. A trashing, frustrated puddle of noises scrambles about throwing water. Sae-byeok has claws and a tail and a head and a body and can breathe.
someone comes to a strange scene through the front door - she still has keys - there's a trail of Sae-byeok's clothes leading to the bathroom, a line of slime, up and over into the toilet. Sae-byeok has of course left the front bedroom a mess, leaving her stuff scattered all over the floor. She discovers the truth about Sae-byeok's information with a quick peek of the thing looking up.
someone Sae-byeok isn't a fish at all.
Sae-byeok is an axolotl, with shining, white skin, big pink flappers around the neck, and cute big black eyes that glare upwards in the frustration only a human turned amphibian could feel.
Euphemia comes to a strange scene through the front door - she still has keys - there's a trail of Sae-byeok's clothes leading to the bathroom, a line of slime, up and over into the toilet. Sae-byeok has of course left the front bedroom a mess, leaving her stuff scattered all over the floor. She discovers the truth about Sae-byeok's information with a quick peek of the thing looking up.
someone Sae-byeok isn't a fish at all.
Sae-byeok is an axolotl, with shining, white skin, big pink flappers around the neck, and cute big black eyes that glare upwards in the frustration only a human turned amphibian could feel.
Euphemia comes to a strange scene through the front door - she still has keys - there's a trail of Sae-byeok's clothes leading to the bathroom, a line of slime, up and over into the toilet. Sae-byeok has of course left the front bedroom a mess, leaving her stuff scattered all over the floor. She discovers the truth about Sae-byeok's information with a quick peek of the thing looking up.
Sae-byeok isn't a fish at all.
Sae-byeok is an axolotl, with shining, white skin, big pink flappers around the neck, and cute big black eyes that glare upwards in the frustration only a human turned amphibian could feel.
Euphemia wonders how a fish isn't a fish
Don't be silly. Fish aren't real.
"Bffft!" Sae-byeok lifts her head out of the water to shout. It's just a hiccup- closer to the smallest car horn before she returns below the surface- limbs walking on nothing.
Euphemia sighs, reaching into her utility belt to pull out a singular plastic cleaning glove, snapping it onto her hand. She steps over to plug the bathtub instead, letting it fill with neutral-temp water... before reaching down to pick up the slimy amphibian and transfer her over to the bath. "Well." She wonders. "Now I know axolotls make noise."
Sae-byeok wiggles in the water a little. Maybe it's a response. Another tight circle, then the toilet seat bumps as she strikes her head on the lip that overhangs.
Clearly the Sae-byeok is too slippery to transfer the first time. So Euphemia gently grabs at it again, transferring it over to the bath.
The water of the tub is far more comfortable, and cleaner, and Sae-byeok the axolotl is very soft. It's a hiccuping, coughing noise, or the short barks of a very small dog. No explanation is forthcoming, though the knowledge of RITUAL tells Sae-byeok the disc she had was cursed by someone.
Sae-byeok says, telepathy, "Cousin, hi. I saw you. I'm a fish and it's a problem. I don't know what- oh, hi. hi. hi. I need help. I need a decursing. It's a ritual. It's a long ritual, but people exist. You could do that ritual or- or or an Anarch- I don't have my phone and most Anarchs might be confused and do strange things."
Sae-byeok goes limp in Euphemia's carry, sputters, and then scrambles around the water like an escaped ferret.
Euphemia grimaces, glancing down at her phone. "I have no idea how to do that ritual." Euphemia admits, though she's settles down, cross-legged, nonetheless. "... Whatever. I guess I could try. Lily isn't even -- nocturnal bitch."
Sae-byeok sits for a moment, staring at Euphemia with two beady thoughtless eyes. Then her skin begins to pigment to suit the bathtub.
Euphemia shows off her amazing dagger to the invisible presence.
Sae-byeok head begins buck, twirls, and then her body follow suit in a small lopping somersault.
Sae-byeok says, telepathy, "Cleanse: Kim Sae-byeok, Custodia, Purgo, The word for how you transfer your life force. These are the important words."
Sae-byeok tries to draw in the water and has as much success as one would anticipate. You don't use an incantation. There's a nuclear isotope in the living room. It's cursed. It's an 'alpha.' I don't know what that means. It's a nuclear isotope.
Sae-byeok stops struggling in her aerobic loops and begins to float still like a dead body as she concentrates on protecting her psyche.
Sae-byeok tries to draw in the water and has as much success as one would anticipate. "You don't use an incantation. There's a nuclear isotope in the living room. It's cursed. It's an 'alpha.' I don't know what that means. It's a nuclear isotope."
Euphemia apologizes for the wait
"Is that... what cursed you?" Euphemia asks, turning to glance over her shoulder and peer through the door to regard the living room from afar. She seems confused. Concerned. And if Sae doesn't know what it is.... fat chance she would either. "Maybe if I destroy it it will free you?"
Sae-byeok's spine and head bob in rapid affirmation of the first sentence, and then swirl around in a circle in a confused state at the second.
Nothing happens to Euphemia when she picks it up. It's definitely a one-time thing that goes inert, like the bracelets and daggers and charms both Sae-byeok and Euphemia are familiar with.
"Well. We'll begin with a cleanse ritual and see what happens from there." Euphemia suggests, pulling a stick of chalk from her utility bag to draw three concentric circles on the ground. She has prescient planner, clearly. Euphemia sketches in the runners for cleanse into the tile with careful precision... aided by the fact that many such runes are etched into her own flesh.
a rapid scratching occurs periodically as Sae-byeok tries to scramble up and check on Euphemia's progress. Alas. she has no grip on the ceramic service.
Sae-byeok has learned that telempathy works in encounters but telepathy doesn't.
Sae-byeok gives a thousand yard stare of, well, she's not a fish but she gives that stare, stilling in the bathtub.
"Stay in the water idiot. I don't think you can breathe without it." Euphemia quietly warns, occasionally referencing parts of her body with a phone camera as if the scars etched into her skin serve as gruesome notes taken in Harry Potter's favorite class on the occult. Four individual shimmering symbols... guided vaguely by Sae-byeok's words... sketched into arcane, ancient embroidery within which Euphemia seats herself. Mentally returning to reality after a few moments of mental absence.
Sae-byeok scrambles five minutes later, running in a burst of energy along the small slope provided at the end of the bathtub. She's not any more successful there.
Euphemia settles down in the centermost of the three circles, rolling down each of her sleeves with a shuddering, exhausted sigh. This is Novel's place, anyways. Fuck getting a dish to keep the place clean. Wrists bared, her skin glowed with a soft, alabaster luminescence, marred only by the deliberate strokes of her own hand. A blade of dark silver moved with practiced precision, its edge whispering secrets as it kissed her flesh. Each motion was deliberate, almost reverent, carving intricate arcane symbols into the canvas of her body.
Euphemia's arms were tapestries of mysticism, every inch of her limbs inscribed with flowing, interlocking glyphs that spoke of ancient power. Spirals of symbols wound down her shoulders and biceps, tapering into finer, more intricate details along her forearms, as if the language of the arcane grew more specific the closer it came to her fingertips. Her hands, trembling yet steady, bore circles of runes that converged at her palms, which were now slick with a crimson sheen. It wasn't a particularly difficult, nor taxing ritual. But Euphemia is resolute in her conviction. Blood would need to be spilt, and Euphemia was hardly shy to spill it.
Sae-byeok says, telepathy, "This is a terrible experience. A fish. I bought that at the goblin market for Toni. Toni needs to cut things sometimes and it's hard to pay for needles so I get her a radioactive isotope to operate on Demigods if they need it because it's the hardest material to get and the Goblin Market is a strange place you wanted to talk to me cousin?"
Euphemia responds only with a repetitive, whispered mantra... her eyes fluttering closed as the ritual reaches its completion. She waits... listening for Sae-byeok's change.
There's a soft POP and a pressure on Euphemia's ear of displaced air. Unlike the transformation, the reversal of such is more sudden and more splashy that sends water sloshing over the side of the top as Sae-byeok is suddenly stretched back to human form all in one go with what feels like a sneeze backwards.
It's a short exasperation. A lot of things happen very quickly, and a lot of senses open and close and shift and drop and recover until Sae-byeok is violently awake, covered in water and completely nude in a space that seemed much larger a minute before.
Euphemia glances up, sapphire stare settling upon someone as her body suddenly wrenches itself into shape.
Euphemia glances up, sapphire stare settling upon Sae-byeok as her body suddenly wrenches itself into shape.
"Thanks." Sae-byeok squeaks to Euphemia with eyes displaced by the thought of a little axolotl lifestyle, faintly covering herself with a hand that keeps pawing.
The arrival of Euphemia brings hope amidst Sae-byeok's despair. Euphemia, upon discovering the chaos in her apartment and the trail leading to the bathroom, decides to perform a decursing ritual to return Sae-byeok to her human form. Despite her initial uncertainty and lack of expertise with such specific curses, Euphemia's determination sees her through the complex preparation and execution of the ritual. Utilizing the link Sae-byeok had with the cursed item and drawing on ancient methods, Euphemia crafts a delicate process of reversal. The ritual, marked by Euphemia's self-sacrifice and the whisper of arcane incantations, culminates in a dramatic reversal of the curse. Sae-byeok, witnessing the careful and meticulous efforts of her cousin, experiences a sudden and splashy return to her human form. Amidst relief and lingering disorientation, she thanks Euphemia, a gesture underscoring her gratitude for being freed from her fish-like prison and marking the end of an extraordinary ordeal.
(Sae-byeok's odd encounter(SRNovel):SRNovel)
[Sat Jan 18 2025]
In a Homely Living Room
The tranquil living room has floor-to-ceiling walls lined in light-colored handmade terracotta Danish bricks, pale polished concrete floors and Douglas fir timber ceilings, and is furnished with a massive leather sectional couch pressed against the corner between the entrance and the kitchen door, allowing for the wrap-around view and luxurious comfort. A low white birch table providing a setting space before it.
The bare raw brick surrounding the fireplace across from the couch is mounted in the central south-western locale of the apartment which serves the dual function of additional heating and the lovely view of flames during the winter months.
A designer has chosen to clad the walls with black painted wood slats, and adding black floating shelves lining the other walls to provide space for a few carefully curated decorative objects. Layered rugs define the seating area and twin floor lamps add symmetry and ambient lighting. The rest of the decor is kept minimal to keep the focus on the architecture of the room.
It is afternoon, about 19F(-7C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky.
(Your target has been hexed and transformed into an animal against their will. Unable to turn back they need to try to find allies who can understand their problem and find a way to undo the curse.
)
Sae-byeok wakes on her back, a lead-lined disk with a nuclear isotope sitting atop her test like a medallion. The smell of dust, paper, and the smallest hint of blood trail from her to the door to 1-0-2.
With a short thought, Sae-byeok sits up. "Annneeoong hasseyoo..." She mutters to a lonesome audience. For all that these places are apartments, they're also buckers- and that lack of sunshine covets her lethargy.
Bunkers. What are buckers, Sae-byeok would think.
Sae-byeok makes an inspection of herself, holding a hand against her chest to make sure the heart still beats. The rhythm seems to think so, but it doesn't inform if she feels dead inside.
Sae-byeok's hand drops like a dead branch to her stomach. The motion does nothing to help her expression.
It was just another, normal day for Sae-byeok. As normal as any day for her could be, with her decisions and interest. Unfortunately for her that disk was more than it seemed and bore with it something upon it's touch. Sae-byeok's waking mind has memories of warm water and swimming, of little things darting around. And when she holds the disk up to her hand she notices something strange:
Her skin was softer, smoother! One would say the healthy treatments working except, it's slightly translucent and she can see her bones and veins beneath. And gosh, it's hard to hold onto the disk with how slippery her skin seems to be, and even her clothing starts to itch. Her face feels odd, and even breathing feels strange, a pressure around the rib cages, a sort of strange itching.
Then around the ears, a tickling sensation, a sudden sharpness of pain in sudden shock of new stimulation - she can see in a wider field of view, lights and colors right through feathery ears. The rest of the transformation is more swift. Sae-byeok's fingers and toes shortening and thickening. Webs spring between them as shoes and socks slip free, becoming webbed. Hands and feet morphing into paddles. Something about the sensation feels right - familiar, merging with the outwards and sudden sprouting of a long, flexible tale from the base of the spine caught tangled in clothes.
Shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, as Sae-byeok's eyes grow and grow, the dim light of the room growing into something luminous and agonizingly dry.
And then as Sae-byeok's sides and neck open up into gills, her transformation complete.
Sae-byeok immediately begins to suffocate. Thankfully, someone left all the doors open.
Sae-byeok flaps. The limbs are wrong- but they also right. Familiar in the wrong way, scratching that same awful itch that every gained sense from arcana seems to intuit upon one's self.
Sae-byeok makes a small, gasping rattle that isn't quite her, and then begins to waddle. Waddle and swim on land towards the southwestern bathroom.
He would, too. Waddle, waddle, waddle a layer of slime that's slowly drying out and leaving the skin dry and uncomfortably itchy. Above looms the sink, the tub, the toilet, and finally the shower looming like a glass skyscraper all shining and gleaming with white and steel. At least Sae-byeok has legs, an efficiency in scrambling. The gills seal shut. It seems that she can hold her breath for a long time, whatever Sae-byeok currently is, and the clothing gets tangled up briefly though she slithers out with relative ease. Still. The GREATEST CHALLENGE YET...
Getting into the water.
There's a plastic stool, and the mat, and someone has left damp towels lying all over the floor like a slob in their hurry to get clean and get to work.
"GUuuugggh." she screams. She's screaming, it just.. Doesn't have vocal chords. But a tribulation of her fins creates a scattered patter like a clap- and it creates movement. The spine- the salvation, but to what end? To where?
Sae-byeok isn't proud that the she usually doesn't end up near a toilet when she tends to vomit. She's not proud that the first thing to cause her to run, er- *flap* to one is that she's suddenly a fish. Striking her head and tail towards the ground, and then flinging them both out to strike the ground like a whip is the motion she chooses, in a panic. To the stool- to the toilet- to-
Sae-byeok is a supernatural fish? Does that work? Stronger than normal fish?
A gurgling, almost hiccuping noise comes from between her lips. It sounds a bit like a very tiny dog attempting to bark. Hiccup. Hick. There's no fins, oddly enough, though the flapping around her neck seems to feel similar and it gives her a strange, distorted sensitivity to the levels of light around her. Sae-byeok launches through the air with grace and strength that belong not-at-all to the small critter she currently is, giving her the ability to LEAP the same distance that... well, a human would easily take a step for.
Still, though! Progress! Everything about her is currently supernatural and strange and there is SPLASH when she ends up in the toilet and able to breath again, gills opening and air flowing in. Perhaps not the cleanest of circumstances but...
It beats the alternative. Moving around in water comes as easily as the breathing does.
Sae-byeok sits in the toilet, tilting her head to look at the hole with one eye. She practices a smile just to see how it feels, and gets a sort of pursed-lipped resignation. Natural mechanics push her in small circle. The need to expend movement within a fight or flight- and then the immediate need to converse it.
Sae-byeok says, telepathy, "Cousin, I am a fish in the toilet. I don't know if I'm in the Nightmare. I'm a fish in the toilet and I can breathe and I never want to leave but my eyes feel weird and normal and I don't know what I'm seeing."
Sae-byeok says, telepathy, "I am in Novel's apartment in the toilet and I can breathe. The pipe is small and I can go but it will take me far and everything is JITTERING."
The water is really too cold for Sae-byeok Like, really too cold. It wasn't so much noticeable earlier in the blind panic but it is FREEZING. Though the native magic she has might help, there, and a further scrutiny of her fingers notices she has little webbed claws. They look like lizard limbs and they're tiny, though she could scramble deeper down into the sewers if she wanted to try that route.
Sae-byeok is a depressed fish. It's not a strange sight. Fish live very depressing lives in small tubs of water. The toilet is a small, small space for a life to live- especially intelligent fish life.
Sae-byeok spins about in thought, scraping about the toilet with her claws like a cat trashing in the bath.
A noise, from the southwest. A trashing, frustrated puddle of noises scrambles about throwing water. Sae-byeok has claws and a tail and a head and a body and can breathe.
someone comes to a strange scene through the front door - she still has keys - there's a trail of Sae-byeok's clothes leading to the bathroom, a line of slime, up and over into the toilet. Sae-byeok has of course left the front bedroom a mess, leaving her stuff scattered all over the floor. She discovers the truth about Sae-byeok's information with a quick peek of the thing looking up.
someone Sae-byeok isn't a fish at all.
Sae-byeok is an axolotl, with shining, white skin, big pink flappers around the neck, and cute big black eyes that glare upwards in the frustration only a human turned amphibian could feel.
Euphemia comes to a strange scene through the front door - she still has keys - there's a trail of Sae-byeok's clothes leading to the bathroom, a line of slime, up and over into the toilet. Sae-byeok has of course left the front bedroom a mess, leaving her stuff scattered all over the floor. She discovers the truth about Sae-byeok's information with a quick peek of the thing looking up.
someone Sae-byeok isn't a fish at all.
Sae-byeok is an axolotl, with shining, white skin, big pink flappers around the neck, and cute big black eyes that glare upwards in the frustration only a human turned amphibian could feel.
Euphemia comes to a strange scene through the front door - she still has keys - there's a trail of Sae-byeok's clothes leading to the bathroom, a line of slime, up and over into the toilet. Sae-byeok has of course left the front bedroom a mess, leaving her stuff scattered all over the floor. She discovers the truth about Sae-byeok's information with a quick peek of the thing looking up.
Sae-byeok isn't a fish at all.
Sae-byeok is an axolotl, with shining, white skin, big pink flappers around the neck, and cute big black eyes that glare upwards in the frustration only a human turned amphibian could feel.
Euphemia wonders how a fish isn't a fish
Don't be silly. Fish aren't real.
"Bffft!" Sae-byeok lifts her head out of the water to shout. It's just a hiccup- closer to the smallest car horn before she returns below the surface- limbs walking on nothing.
Euphemia sighs, reaching into her utility belt to pull out a singular plastic cleaning glove, snapping it onto her hand. She steps over to plug the bathtub instead, letting it fill with neutral-temp water... before reaching down to pick up the slimy amphibian and transfer her over to the bath. "Well." She wonders. "Now I know axolotls make noise."
Sae-byeok wiggles in the water a little. Maybe it's a response. Another tight circle, then the toilet seat bumps as she strikes her head on the lip that overhangs.
Clearly the Sae-byeok is too slippery to transfer the first time. So Euphemia gently grabs at it again, transferring it over to the bath.
The water of the tub is far more comfortable, and cleaner, and Sae-byeok the axolotl is very soft. It's a hiccuping, coughing noise, or the short barks of a very small dog. No explanation is forthcoming, though the knowledge of RITUAL tells Sae-byeok the disc she had was cursed by someone.
Sae-byeok says, telepathy, "Cousin, hi. I saw you. I'm a fish and it's a problem. I don't know what- oh, hi. hi. hi. I need help. I need a decursing. It's a ritual. It's a long ritual, but people exist. You could do that ritual or- or or an Anarch- I don't have my phone and most Anarchs might be confused and do strange things."
Sae-byeok goes limp in Euphemia's carry, sputters, and then scrambles around the water like an escaped ferret.
Euphemia grimaces, glancing down at her phone. "I have no idea how to do that ritual." Euphemia admits, though she's settles down, cross-legged, nonetheless. "... Whatever. I guess I could try. Lily isn't even -- nocturnal bitch."
Sae-byeok sits for a moment, staring at Euphemia with two beady thoughtless eyes. Then her skin begins to pigment to suit the bathtub.
Euphemia shows off her amazing dagger to the invisible presence.
Sae-byeok head begins buck, twirls, and then her body follow suit in a small lopping somersault.
Sae-byeok says, telepathy, "Cleanse: Kim Sae-byeok, Custodia, Purgo, The word for how you transfer your life force. These are the important words."
Sae-byeok tries to draw in the water and has as much success as one would anticipate. You don't use an incantation. There's a nuclear isotope in the living room. It's cursed. It's an 'alpha.' I don't know what that means. It's a nuclear isotope.
Sae-byeok stops struggling in her aerobic loops and begins to float still like a dead body as she concentrates on protecting her psyche.
Sae-byeok tries to draw in the water and has as much success as one would anticipate. "You don't use an incantation. There's a nuclear isotope in the living room. It's cursed. It's an 'alpha.' I don't know what that means. It's a nuclear isotope."
Euphemia apologizes for the wait
"Is that... what cursed you?" Euphemia asks, turning to glance over her shoulder and peer through the door to regard the living room from afar. She seems confused. Concerned. And if Sae doesn't know what it is.... fat chance she would either. "Maybe if I destroy it it will free you?"
Sae-byeok's spine and head bob in rapid affirmation of the first sentence, and then swirl around in a circle in a confused state at the second.
Nothing happens to Euphemia when she picks it up. It's definitely a one-time thing that goes inert, like the bracelets and daggers and charms both Sae-byeok and Euphemia are familiar with.
"Well. We'll begin with a cleanse ritual and see what happens from there." Euphemia suggests, pulling a stick of chalk from her utility bag to draw three concentric circles on the ground. She has prescient planner, clearly. Euphemia sketches in the runners for cleanse into the tile with careful precision... aided by the fact that many such runes are etched into her own flesh.
a rapid scratching occurs periodically as Sae-byeok tries to scramble up and check on Euphemia's progress. Alas. she has no grip on the ceramic service.
Sae-byeok has learned that telempathy works in encounters but telepathy doesn't.
Sae-byeok gives a thousand yard stare of, well, she's not a fish but she gives that stare, stilling in the bathtub.
"Stay in the water idiot. I don't think you can breathe without it." Euphemia quietly warns, occasionally referencing parts of her body with a phone camera as if the scars etched into her skin serve as gruesome notes taken in Harry Potter's favorite class on the occult. Four individual shimmering symbols... guided vaguely by Sae-byeok's words... sketched into arcane, ancient embroidery within which Euphemia seats herself. Mentally returning to reality after a few moments of mental absence.
Sae-byeok scrambles five minutes later, running in a burst of energy along the small slope provided at the end of the bathtub. She's not any more successful there.
Euphemia settles down in the centermost of the three circles, rolling down each of her sleeves with a shuddering, exhausted sigh. This is Novel's place, anyways. Fuck getting a dish to keep the place clean. Wrists bared, her skin glowed with a soft, alabaster luminescence, marred only by the deliberate strokes of her own hand. A blade of dark silver moved with practiced precision, its edge whispering secrets as it kissed her flesh. Each motion was deliberate, almost reverent, carving intricate arcane symbols into the canvas of her body.
Euphemia's arms were tapestries of mysticism, every inch of her limbs inscribed with flowing, interlocking glyphs that spoke of ancient power. Spirals of symbols wound down her shoulders and biceps, tapering into finer, more intricate details along her forearms, as if the language of the arcane grew more specific the closer it came to her fingertips. Her hands, trembling yet steady, bore circles of runes that converged at her palms, which were now slick with a crimson sheen. It wasn't a particularly difficult, nor taxing ritual. But Euphemia is resolute in her conviction. Blood would need to be spilt, and Euphemia was hardly shy to spill it.
Sae-byeok says, telepathy, "This is a terrible experience. A fish. I bought that at the goblin market for Toni. Toni needs to cut things sometimes and it's hard to pay for needles so I get her a radioactive isotope to operate on Demigods if they need it because it's the hardest material to get and the Goblin Market is a strange place you wanted to talk to me cousin?"
Euphemia responds only with a repetitive, whispered mantra... her eyes fluttering closed as the ritual reaches its completion. She waits... listening for Sae-byeok's change.
There's a soft POP and a pressure on Euphemia's ear of displaced air. Unlike the transformation, the reversal of such is more sudden and more splashy that sends water sloshing over the side of the top as Sae-byeok is suddenly stretched back to human form all in one go with what feels like a sneeze backwards.
It's a short exasperation. A lot of things happen very quickly, and a lot of senses open and close and shift and drop and recover until Sae-byeok is violently awake, covered in water and completely nude in a space that seemed much larger a minute before.
Euphemia glances up, sapphire stare settling upon someone as her body suddenly wrenches itself into shape.
Euphemia glances up, sapphire stare settling upon Sae-byeok as her body suddenly wrenches itself into shape.
"Thanks." Sae-byeok squeaks to Euphemia with eyes displaced by the thought of a little axolotl lifestyle, faintly covering herself with a hand that keeps pawing.