Line #25 NightmareFuel/Twig


1	%%Nightmare Fuel pages are Spoilers Off.
2
3	Beware, unmarked spoilers below.
4	----
5
6	* In the very first chapter the MadScientist the Lambsbridge Orphans are after ends up getting eaten feet first by his own creation.
7	* The description of the American War versus the Crown Empire, in which the latter used parasites to paralyze American soldiers in order to make them into stitched. That is, if they weren't just left to die of exposure.
8	* Sub-Rosa crushing her creator's skull and the circumstances surrounding her creation.
9	* Godwin's death at the hands of the Hangman, who wrings his neck up so far that it snaps, likely causing an internal decapitation. The narration also goes into gruesome detail about how exactly Godwin feels as this happens.
10	* The fifth chapter begins with Sy watching a man get converted into a Stitched for trying to betray rebels to the Crown.
11	* It's revealed in the sixth chapter that the Ghosts are made from HumanResources in the form of the kidnapped children.
12	* Everything about what happens to Avis. From the [[BodyHorror physical]] [[BioAugmentation alteration]] she voluntarily performed on herself, to the MindRape, EyeScream and guilt trip the Duke puts her through. Argh.
13	* The Duke was terrifying enough in his displays of what absolute sovereignty means in the Twigverse, but we soon find out that he's the closest thing to a ReasonableAuthorityFigure the nobles have; the Baron Richmond is a complete AxCrazy sadist who seems to have no pleasures in life beyond tormenting others, and he has carte blanche from the Crown, the Academy and the law to do whatever he wants to non-nobles, and his physical superiority to un-modified humans makes him virtually invincible even if anyone dared to oppose him. In Arc 9 he stabs out one of Sy's eyes completely on a whim, forbids him from getting it replaced and orders him to tell anyone who asks that he lost it because he was an imbecile who dared to look a noble in the eye and admit failure. By the time this happens, we've seen enough to know that he can be quite confident that these commands will be obeyed by most people.
14	** The Twins, in addition to being just as psychotic as the Baron, reveal that they're actually two sets of twins; each pair of older and younger have been modified to meld bodies to look like a single StatuesqueStunner until it's time to hunt, at which point about a third of the woman's torso splits off into a large, very fast giant foetus-like thing with a pair of mantis-scythes for arms, which is just as bloodthirsty as her older sister.
15	* Chapter 9.6 finally reveals the process of applying the Wyvern formula: it's injected through the nostrils, piercing bone to reach the brain and delivering a poisonous payload directly to the part of the brain that controls pain reception and causing unimaginably intense pain as a side effect.
16	* The Baron's town in Arc 10 has been turned into an apparently neat and tidy StepfordSuburbia where everyone who arrives is made to surrender their firstborn to be modified into a barely-sentient monster that will then return to its family, make them look after it, and go on a killing rampage if any disturbance breaks out]]. This ensures that concern for their family and neighbours means that hardly anyone will resist when the Baron or the Twins decide to take some random civilian away for torture.
17	** The inside of the church seen in Chapter 10.18, where we get to see what happened exactly to those the Baron caught there. That is, they're [[ColdBloodedTorture nailed to the pews]] in an eternal pose of supplication to die of blood loss or exposure, and they've been there so long that the bodies that weren't reduced to skeletons have become naturally mummified.
18	* Everything and anything to do with [[AIIsACrapshoot primordials]]. [[TorturedMonster Being one]] probably [[HumansAreBastards sucks worse]] than trying to either implement or get stuck too near [[ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure the clean-up]]. And, that's saying something: they are ''never'' developed [[BiologicalWeaponsSolveEverything simply to enjoy what life and inteligence they get]], so it tends to [[GoneHorriblyRight get very interesting for everybody]]. Well, more so than with most experiments gone either wrong or right, at least.
19	* Speaking of... The Ravage/Red Death/Reminiscence, first shown in Arc 11, is a deadly disease that quickly became {{The Plague}}. It is a deadly rash that develops at a variable rate across hours, spreads quickly, and is so incredibly painful that the victims can ''feel'' it spread through them. Eventually, the victim, still alive, is rooted to the spot by bright red flowering vines, before finally succumbing. The worst part is that the primordial who created it based it on all the things it had eaten in its life, with its entire purpose being to make everything suffer as much as possible.
20	** The cities hit by it eventually turn into perfect (and literal) examples of SceneryGorn. Thousands of dead bodies, human and animal and experiment alike, litter the streets. There's no birds, no animals, no insects; nothing, except the plague's growths. The red flowers carpet every surface, their vines embrace the buildings and connect with every dead thing in the city to seemingly turn it into one living organism. From afar, the buildings look as if drenched in blood, and the cities call to mind one dreadful image or another.
21	--->''Lugh sat on the horizon, stained red. Tynewear was at another place on the horizon. Where Lugh looked like diced chunks of raw flesh scattered in a pool of blood, the spires of Tynewear and the damaged walls of living wood that riddled the city made for an image more like blood-spattered stakes or knives gathered in a cluster.''
22	* Arc 11 also informs us that the stitched are now advanced enough that most of their brains are maintained through the procedure, implying that there could still be something ''aware and alive'' left in them, but [[AndIMustScream incapable of disobeying or controlling their own body]]. In the same chapter, we're introduced to a character who keeps said advanced stitched for sexual use.
23	* [[GreyGoo The Black Wood]], a weapon of mass destruction deployed by the Academy, is little better. Entire swathes of land become dead and colourless wastelands, everything without a quarantine suit dehydrated and dead. It encases 'natural' trees, splits them open and invades thorugh the cracks to suck them dry of nutrients. The only colour left is black, and the only sound heard is the constant noise of wood cracking under the pressure.
24	* The Infante may be the least flamboyantly insane or capricious of the nobles, but his quiet focus on his unstated goals, extreme intellect and absolute confidence leave nobody in any doubt how dangerous he is, even before he reveals his demigod-level enhancements and we find out that he has written off the entire continent to be consumed by Red Death and Black Wood, letting everyone who he doesn't care to take with him to die, so the Crown can simply return to the wasteland in a few centuries and take it back unopposed.
25	* Sylvester's SanitySlippage throughout the later arcs make him a danger to himself and everyone around him. He's completely aware that it's happening, but is unable to stop it. It reaches the point where he's got no real idea what's real or not, and ends up having to bargain with his own hallucinations in the hope that they won't make him harm his friends.

Context NightmareFuel / Twig