The Seeker of Delights waited behind a veil. She watched the human speak with her master, watched them dither over the meerest detail. All the while, her heart pounded with a furious rhythm, and a hunger gnawed at the edge of her mind.
Losing her Corpus to a whelp, at the cusp of victory, stung. It stung so badly that the lashing of the storms against her Anima were but pinpricks in comparison. Still, staring at the chains that bound her were anything but unpleasant. Her new body was…strange, to say the least.
It was definitely weaker than her previous Corpus but only because its initial Anima strength was so low. Now that the Seeker had elevated it to her current level, she was stronger than before. It was still a child's body though, one at the cusp of womanhood, but the structure of the bones, the muscles, were top notch.
Her hands traced the hilt of her greatsword, her weapon Etcher of Sorrows, felt strange to her touch, as if she were too big and unwieldy. Considering that Etcher's previous form had been a rapier, it was quite understandable.
Lightning and thunder danced in the clouds above. A fell wind came from the outside of the Watcher's Fysalli, from the very Chaos itself. The Seeker stiffened, then relaxed. A storm was brewing, but it would be quite some time before it struck.
Who knew how long she waited until the human finished speaking and the One Who Watches and Waits beckoned at the Seeker. She passed the veil, letting its gossamer webs caress her sensitive skin.
The human had just turned to leave but the Seeker's entrance drew his attention. She could see his eyes narrow as it danced over her form. She shivered at the touch of his eyes, his intent and desire quite clear, but he mastered himself and gave her a scathing glance. The Seeker's sharp grin made him shiver as he hurried away.
Flourishing her flowing robe, the Seeker gave the Watcher a sweeping bow and knelt down on one knee.
"What do you wish of me, my lord?"
"Do what you will," Watcher grunted, "I've no duties to spare for you."
"Then may I seek a hunt?"
"You think defeating the child would redeem you?"
"No, I seek only the thrill of the chase and it's inevitable end."
The Watcher stared at her silently while tapping his fingers on the armrest of his marble throne. "You've failed your task. The traitor remains ensconced in his demesne and we are no closer to subsuming the plane as before."
"Pardon, my liege, but do you really wish for its return to Chaos?"
The Watcher stared at the Seeker in silence for a good long while. Long enough that her knee started to ache. The ground in front of the throne, though it looked soft, was harder than obsidian.
"You are free to hunt but you must do it alone. No aid for you from this court and do not return until its culmination."
The Seeker of Delights bowed her head, hiding her eyes from view.
"You may go."
She stood and spun on her heels and walked out of the throne room. Creatures of varied shapes and sizes leered at her but at the same time, they dared not come too close. Her Field churned and danced around her, betraying her agitation but also her eagerness.
A Wyldling, already halfway to advancing beyond the mindless state that all of them had been born with, stumbled across her path. The creature towered over her, at least twice her size, but it's insectoid face twisted in fear as it scrambled back. Too late though; its foot touched the edge of her Field and the next moment, a jagged bite mark ripped the tips of its toes off. The carapace healed over quickly amidst the creature's howling but the foot had been deformed and it would take more than time before it would return to its former shape.
The Seeker licked her lips and grinned savagely. She felt the need to feed, a hunger gnawing at her belly. It was a fierce thing, she realised, far more than what she experienced before. Her Corpus was but a pale imitation of the original but a tiny hint of how that child thought, of her emotions and desires, had seeped into the Seeker.
Power. That was what she sought now. Power to be free. The Seeker pushed through the boundaries of the Fysalli, finding herself in a swirling storm. Her Protective Field took it all in, taming the streams and using it to propel her. In the Chaos, those with a fixed form were crippled but she had long been used to it. There was no going back to being Unformed.
Chaos flowed away from the plane of Rumiga, turbulent streams that wore down any unattended waypoint in a matter of hours instead of the days it usually took. The Watcher's Fysalli was just a couple of Waypoints from the Tideland's Depths.
The first waypoint was a barren desert with sand spinning on concentric rings along the dunes. She walked and walked, ignoring the heat, revelling in it, in fact. This copied body seemed to like the heat, despite the pale skin. The next Waypoint was a jungle. Creeper vines attempted to ensnare her limbs but a simple thought was more than enough to send them away.
And when she entered the Depths, the turbulent winds ceased as though they had never been. Swarmlings nested in the distance, large masses of brown carapace with blue beady eyes. The terrain changed erratically, with high cliffs next to rolling grasslands, which turned to city ruins. The swarmlings nested in every nook and cranny, poor fools. Outside of the Tidelands they would have been tiny specks of will, born from the Abyss, rising up like bubbles from magma vents in the deep ocean.
They would have been nothing more than food for the greater Unformed but at least they would have enough force of will to know what they were about. The moment they entered the plane, nearly all of their will was subsumed to hold onto their bodies, to keep them from turning into mush. Little was left for rational thought.
The Seeker shrugged uncomfortably. She had been one of them in ages past until she survived long enough for her Will to strengthen. She could barely remember that time and she didn't want to remember.
She passed Waypoint after Waypoint, a variety of different locales and circumstances. One was as though she were in the halls of an ancient castle, complete with tapestries depicting battles long past. Another was of a coral reef, with colourful fish darting in the shallow water. The Seeker's Field provided her with air to breathe, particles of minute Chaos filtered and renewed her essence well. A large fish with razor sharp teeth charged out of the shadows, mouth agape. The Seeker impaled it with a quick thrust. Red blood stained the surrounding waters red as the Seeker pulled her weapon out. As she left the body to settle on the sand, scavengers swarmed it soon after.
She passed a dozen more Waypoints until, finally, she was in the Mid Marches. She could feel it easily: the very air around her seemed dry and arid, sucking the moisture from her body, only it was the Chaos inside that it pulled. A quick adjustment of her Field stopped the effect, but it would only grow worse the farther she was from true Chaos.
She could easily survive in the Mid Marches, though part of her reserves would be taken up to sustain her Field. At the Shallows, it would be worse, and once she breached into the plane, then the aridness of ambient Chaos would suffocate her when her reserves dry up.
Still, she had days to walk the plane before she had to return to the Mid Marches at least. More than enough time to find her quarry. Halfway through the Mid Marches, she paused. There were dozens of humans in the Waypoint she found herself in. She felt it shift with their Will, the Chaos changing to suit their tastes. One moment, she was in a dark forest, long vines hanging down in curtains across the trail, the next, the canopy had opened up enough for the Accursed Sun to shine its rays down to the floor.
The Radiant's glare made her flinch, even as something inside her seemed to swallow the energy and replenish her reserves. Interesting. Not the moment to be distracted though. Not a longstride away, a small team of legionnaires in a column marched. The Seeker frowned and stepped into the foliage. They weren't her quarry, and she would not waste time dealing with them.
Her robes changed from its vibrant red and grey into a muted green and she pulled the hood over her head. Her body's long golden tresses tucked itself carefully inside with her will as she distanced herself from the trail.
Humans, she had long known, would follow a trail without looking at the sides if they had no reason to. The trees were more widely spaced apart, though the undergrowth was as thick as before. Still, the way the lead scout scanned his surroundings, the Seeker thought that these were far more alert than usual. She reached out with her mind, seeking a nest of swarmlings, a Wanderer, or even a Hunter nearby to distract them from her. She found a nest, a hundred strong, and with a mental push, she set them on the patrol's path.
She made her way to an overhang, keeping her Protective Field subtle enough that it wouldn't show. Minutes later, the swarmlings had burst out of the undergrowth and charged at the humans.
Of course, they didn't make it more than a dozen paces before they were cut down by the legionnaires' varied Chaos techniques. But it had called attention to the nest enough that the Seeker would be able to slip past their net.
She was through and out of the Waypoint by the time the group found the nest and eliminated the regenerating swarmlings.
The next Waypoint proved even more troublesome though. For some reason, the Empire's legion was out in force. Seeker could see a vessel, a Chaos explorer rather than those oversized scows they used to travel between established planes, hung in the air above the hilly region she found herself in. As she watched, metal clad figures with huge metallic wings hovered around the vessel while it cut through the air.
The Seeker wedged herself in a ditch and covered all but her eyes while they passed above her. Her Field was still, pulled as close to her skin as she could manage. An hour later and they were gone.
Shaking her head, she went the opposite way. What did such a large group of Imperials intend to do in the Tidelands? She didn't see the sigil so she had no idea which legion it was.
Still, it was none of her business right now. Let She Who Whispers in the Light and the One Who Watches and Waits deal with them. The Seeker had other things to do. She passed through the next Waypoints without issue, pausing only when she was at the threshold of the Shallows.
She took a deep breath, savouring the Tidelands' ambient Chaos. She thickened her Field before she stepped though and almost immediately, she felt the negative pressure from the thinner Chaos. Nearly half of her reserves were committed to maintaining her bubble of safety, and here, she could barely respire enough ambient Chaos to refill her essence well. She wasn't looking forward to leaving the Tidelands, but still, the best prey were there.
She went through five Waypoints and then, she was before the Veil. She couldn't just go through, otherwise it would announce her passage with a flaring display. She created a secluded nook, and then sat in meditation while her Field harmonized with the Veil and the atmosphere behind it. It took a couple of days, and even still, once she passed, the barrier would fluctuate with her colours. But it wouldn't be as obvious and she was unlikely to be found unless she came out within a dozen paces of someone from the other side. Then, there was a permanent solution to that problem.
Luckily, it was night by the time she passed through, though it did make the flare up a bit more obvious. There was no one in sight. Chuckling to herself, she loped out into the planar proper, a wary eye out on the Watchtower that pulled at her Anima with its confounding artefact. She skirted a league around it before she passed the deadlands and into farmlands.
The earth had been recently plowed, she realized, though the planting hadn't begun. The moon was waxing, nearly at half. It was bright enough that it drowned out the Chaos streams above. Still, the celestial body was already close to the western border, and dawn would come soon. She walked down the trails, not wishing to draw attention by wandering into the fields.
"Now where would I find that whelp?" she muttered. She knew that the child was in this plane, but beyond that, she couldn't feel much more. Perhaps if she came close enough she would feel a resonance.
The Radiant Sun rose and the Seeker hid herself inside a copse of trees for the moment, to think, and to rest. Travelling the Chaos and then finding herself inside the plane was tiring, and she didn't want to waste her energy. As the sun rose higher, humans started coming into the unturned fields, on wooden boxes with wheels and plows.
"Maybe these people would know where she is." The Seeker mused. Her eyes searched the peasants in their labour, and she found a likely candidate. It was a child, probably close in age to the whelp.
That girl was small, nearly a head shorter than the Seeker's current Corpus, and she had a full head of brown hair. The girl carried a collapsible spear on her belt, as well as a backpack that was probably full of supplies she was bringing to the other farmers. Plus, she had that fresh innocent scent of a newly Awakened human, plump with underused Chaos.
The Seeker grinned. She had one quarry, but it didn't mean that she wouldn't enjoy playing with other food.