Tomb of the Lost

[MP]

Cassius and Draggo:
Cassius' items: burning torch, sturdy rope
Draggo's items: (broken) flint necklace
As the charge drains from his body, his scales receding into human flesh, the juvenile feels the weight pass low overhead like a shadow. Feels eyes moving over him. Turning away. 

The reprieve is a slow, draining feeling. A sullen frustration. Hunger. But though the focus in the air has faded, the weight does not recede. Not for the dragon. Not for the officer. They can feel it hanging in the dark above them. Crawls beneath their feet. It feels like something blooming. Brimming. Ready to boil over. 


Kira:
Kira's items: king's seal, carved fragment
As Kira crawls down the left branch, the ashen smell fades to that of stale air and dust. The dust is everywhere, clogging her nostrils, hanging in motes in the air. Whenever she stops, she hears the scuffling echo nearby, continuing a moment too long. Stopping too abruptly. It's closer than before.

But closer than that, there is a change to the sound of the air. The wall to her right opens up, and somehow, the dark here isn't as intense. Kira can see a low, cramped room - can smell the dust that coats it like a skin. The room is no more than a few body lengths. But its corners are out of view of the tunnel. Its dust-choked smells might mask her. There are two lumps at the opposite end, a little larger than the burbat, all but buried. 

Ahead of her, the dark resumes, and the tunnel stretches on. There's no telling how far she has to crawl, but Kira can smell a fresh tint to the air. It can't be much further, and something seems to know it. The next time the burbat pauses to listen, the scuffling sounds don't stop.


Ari, Sara, Hau, Grace:
Ari's items: hunting horn, silver box (depleted), human effigy
Sara's items: old spear, broken knife, seeing stone
Hau: maned pelt, human effigy
Grace: burning torch, rusty knife
Between the unnatural dark of the room and the two living shades, there's no air left to breathe. Sara, Hau, and Grace feel their worlds spinning. Their vision begins to black out - as much as it matters through their pitch black corner of their room. With how heavy and slow the doors are to open, with the waning strength in their muscles, it seems unlikely that they can escape the room before they suffocate.

Ari rejoins them just in time. When his flame lights their corner, it opens a circle of tarry but breathable air. When he lights Grace's torch with a second green flame, the air clears entirely. The immediate air around the two flames is clean and breathable, moving with the eerie green hue. But where the light wanes, should any of them stray outward, there is still a threatening sense of suffocation. And the dark moves in to reclaim the air whenever the torchlight moves away.

Sara, staring through the lens, notes that the flame affects more than the dark. Like the shadows that flow from their bodies, the two newcomers pale wherever the light hits them. Marchelute has grown transparent around the wing and shoulder; Edge fades out around the face and chest. Lighting Grace's torch seems to amplify this effect. The figures are only half visible, looking more like mirages than flesh and blood.
 
Hau's foxfire, though it never fully manifests, leaves an uncomfortable prickle at his back. The momentary pressure of eyes over his skin. There is a knife visible in the mass of darkness, a match for the wound in his side. But whether because of the clean air or the soothing shape of the idol in his hand, Hau finds that the pain of his wounds have eased a little. His bandaging, while still painful and bloodstained, has stopped leaking, and he feels better able to move.


Edge and Marchelute:
Edge's items: simple knife
Marchelute's items: falconer's glove, silver chain
As Edge and Marchelute debate, something moves by the righthand door - a nearby flicker of blue and, by the right door's threshold, a bubble of grey crust. The pustule isn't as large as the one Edge remembers, and it stops growing after a moment. But it's the first sign of the residue they've seen in this room. And it doesn't disappear.

The mental prickle of crust and residue has been growing in every direction, growing from a blip to a dull, persistent ache. They feel a sudden bloom of it beyond their room, somewhere to their left. Now, with the residue encroaching even on this bright room, the whole place leaves them with a sick, uneasy feeling.  

There's also fresh blood on the ground between their door and the one on the right. There's no body there. No sign of a source. It smears unnaturally across the stone, forming lines. Then curves. Then letters:

It's Sara. Back away. Hurting us. P-

After a few moments, the final bloody letters sharpen.

lease

Whether they've seen the message or not, the green flame doesn't seem intent on letting them leave. It has stopped in the center of the room. Then, as if sensing their presence, it begins moving toward them, bringing the searing agony with it. It draws closer. Closer. The more light strikes their bodies, the worse the pain becomes.

The flame stops in front of the righthand door, blocking off their nearest other escape. It hovers there. Waits. Then a second flame bursts to life, and the pain redoubles. The fires and the door they guard are only several yards from Edge and Marchelute's door, and the pain is almost debilitating. It feels as if the flesh is peeling from their bodies. As if the air is eating them alive. Where they currently stand - the flames by their door, Edge and Marchelute by the other - the two are only at the fringe of the light. If the lights come any closer, death seems imminent. 

There is a third door to the left, at the distant end of the room. There is also the light in the opposite corner, calming as ever, still shining out from the muraled wall. Either of these might provide an escape, if the two can beat the flames.
 

[NightshadeVII]

[OOC: At first Edge tells Marche to put as much distance between himself and the flame as possible, then he calls out to see if Sara can hear him, then he tries to scratch a message into the ground with the knife, telling Sara that the flame hurts them.]

Despite the fact that the Darai felt like he was burning, a chill ran down his spine when he saw the name that appeared on the ground. Sara was here too? Why couldn’t he see her then? What was going on?
Any thoughts that were forming about the situation were cut short as a second flame came to life and the pain doubled. The sudden increase in intensity almost threw the Darai off balance, made him gasp for breath and grit his teeth. The pain felt like it was drilling into his brain now, the flames burning so hot they almost felt painfully cold.

“Marchelute!” Edge turned towards the other, a pained movement, accompanied by a grimace and a hiss, “get away from the flames, the closer they get the more we’ll both be hurt!”
The ifrit was feeling the effects of the fire too, that much was obvious, and Edge feared that if it continued like this, or got much worse, it would kill them. The body could only endure so much after all. For a moment, the Darai considered using his tail to shield himself, but knowing how sensitive those parts of him were, as injuries there would feel worse than any pain inflicted elsewhere on his body, he didn’t want to risk it.
He had to reach Sara somehow, without hurting her further, and tell her that they had some problems here as well. Did the fire come from them? Another chill ran down Edge’s spine as he remembered what he had done last time. Had he-? He shook his head, he didn’t have time for this now.

“Sara?!”, Edge called out hoping the shifter could hear him, if she really was here, “can you hear me?”
Taking into consideration that she had written on the ground with blood, he assumed he wouldn’t be able to reach the redhead vocally either. So he knelt down on the floor shortly after and pulled out the knife he had been given. If Sara had been able to write on the floor, he should be able to as well, right? The Darai hoped that it wasn’t something that only worked with blood.

Quickly, Edge began scratching letters into the ground with the knife. Shaky, ugly shapes as they were, they were at least readable. The message itself was simple, as much as Edge could manage at the moment:
Trying to. The flames, they’ll kill us. Yours?

[Pearl Dragon]

[Kira creates a dust cloud and a zoomie dust trail to make it look like she ran for the far tunnel.  Meanwhile, she takes cover in a corner to hide from whatever's behind her, rolling in the dust to blend in as she goes.  She is holding her shirt to her mouth and nose for breathing cover.]

Hurrying forward, Kira struggles to resist the temptation to look behind her.  She can hear the crawling thing behind her, keeping pace and only once she pauses to confirm it still there but quickly continues as it sounds closer.  When the room opens up, Kira's senses are bombarded by the intense, choking dust and Kira's breath catches in her throat to avoid coughing it back out.  With a swipe of her hand, she pulls what's left of her t-shirt from her shoulder and shoves it to her mouth and nose.  It's wet, but any kind of barrier is better than none.

However, the dust might not be all that bad, she realizes, and quickly flares her good wing a little with an elbow movement to stir the air and puff the dust out behind her.  Hopefully, whatever was behind her might have its vision obscurred enough, and she takes the momentary opportunity to move to the side towards a corner.  As she turns, her tail also swipes across the floor to create a line of rising dust headed towards the other tunnel, creating the illusion that she might have made a sprint in that direction.  With her dusty distraction in place, Kira threw herself to the ground, rolling twice despite the firey pain all over her to collect as much of the choking dust on her body and fur as she could to blend in.

[tsukikoko]

[OOC: Sara is very thankful for being able to breathe. Realises that the fire is doing something bad to Marche and Edge and instructs her group to all back up as one, so that they're still within the protective bubble of the fire. As they do so, she tries to hold the looking glass up to Ari so he can see Marche, explaining that somehow they're hurting one another and need to get some distance.]

Even knowing what she did about these Halloween experiences, even when a part of her had hardened, nearly died, to leave her with a rebellious anger, Sara could not help the flood of relief when she took her first uninhibited lungful of air. Her body's needs could not be denied. Her chest heaved, she coughed, allowed her spinning consciousness to right itself and thus could not answer Ari's queries at first. However, in the absence of her voice, the shifter raised the looking glass, pointed first at it and then where she had last seen Marche so the spotted man would maybe understand quicker.

As soon as she'd had a few seconds to recover, Sara had the glass straight back in front of her eye, so she could gauge whether Marchelute and Edge had seen her blood message or not. She was already talking rapidly to Ari as she did so.
"Can only see 'im through this 'ere, like, I think-" the shifter's words cut off very abruptly as she realised how strange the two figures now looked; fading, semi-transparent wherever the fire light hit. Her next word came out somewhere between a hiss and a shout. "Bollocks!"
Immediately, Sara threw an arm out, blocking either Grace or Ari should they be attempting to go forward. She waved them back, berating herself for not noticing sooner. If the darkness created by Marchelute and Edge was hurting her group, of course the very thing driving it back would be harming the two spectral figures.
"Git back, git back, we're killin' 'em!" But her group needed to stay with the flames or they would suffocate.

After her initial reaction, Sara drew a steadying breath, then tried to talk quickly, with authority and explain, especially to Ari, who she knew would be confused and concerned for Marchelute.
"We cannae put the flames owt or we'll die, but we 'ave tah git back, alreet? Together. Divvint git away from the flames." She started moving the group backwards as a unit, as best she could, one arm around Hau to continue helping him if he needed it. "Their darkness is 'urtin' us an' our fire, like, is 'urtin' them. Look 'ere." She held the looking glass up to Ari's face, pointing him in the direction she knew Marchelute and Edge to be. With how he had run off before, the last thing she needed was for the man to try getting closer to his mate, however good his intentions might be. "They're goin' transparent in the firelight, ya see?"

If only they could hear each other! Or had a way other than blood messages to communicate. Sara wracked her brain for something, her main priority, however, was to put distance between the two groups. They could hopefully figure out a way to talk when they weren't busy killing each other.

[beastly]

OOC: Grace sure is glad she can breathe now, and follows orders. Sara seems like she knows what she's doing.

[Vaitris]

[OOC: Hau tells everyone that these are the shadows that stabbed him. He backs away with the group, trying to do so without help since he is feeling stronger.]

As the air returned, Hau sucked in a ragged breath, eyes lingering on the shadow. The sight of the dagger reflected in his foxfire left an afterimage in his brain and he felt a shiver crawl up his spine. There was no doubt about it now, if there ever was. “They’re the ones that stabbed me.” His voice was rough and dry, but given how close they huddled there was no need to speak any louder. Hau didn’t know why he felt the need to warn them, but he did. Clearly, whoever was in the darkness was more friend than foe, at least according to Sara, and what had transpired so far had probably been no more than a tragic mix of ignorance and misunderstanding. But that didn’t change the fact he could have died because of it.

So he was more than grateful to move away, sticking close to Sara but freeing himself from her grip so he could move unaided. He wouldn’t be fast, but they weren’t moving at speed. And between the rush of oxygen and the strength emanating from the figurine he still held tightly, he felt better.

[Marshmallow]

[Summary: Marche sees the bloody writing, is confused but ultimately doesn't get time to inspect as the fire moves in and doubles itself. It burns him like water, and he is forced to retreat in order to survive, getting as far from the fire as he can and circling toward the mural side of the room.]


The prickling awareness and unease seemed to be growing over time. It felt increasingly like the pair were operating on borrowed time. Marchelute grimaced at the nagging, aching sensation brought on by that eerie grey crust he somehow just knew was out there growing, festering like some horrid disease. This room and it's bright light had been a comfort before, but now the grey film had sprouted here as well... Was it linked to the flame? Marchelute watched the despairingly familiar fire dance in the center of the room, hovering and swaying like a thing alive. He had so many questions...


And to add yet more to the list, something else caught his attention: Abruptly, he could smell blood. He could see it, too, smearing itself into existence on the bare stone floor just a few yards away. Unbelievably, it appeared to be spelling out words. Edge noticed too, though before Marchelute could investigate the eerie message scrawling itself across the cobbles, the flame intervened.


Pain, fresh and terrible, blossomed across the ifrit's body. The flame had drifted closer while he was distracted, moving as though it intended to cut off their escape. And worse yet, a second flame burst into existence, instantly doubling the exposure and the searing, blistering agony that came with it. Even with the distance, two two of them only on the outer fringes of the light, the pain was staggering. His hide was scalded as if by water - a concept that was as insane as it was alarming. Scales melted away like wax before the flame. Flesh blistered and seeped, and holes opened up in his wings where the firelight touched the membranes.

A strangled cry that was half a scream and half a roar was torn from Marchelute's throat. He didn't even register Edge calling out to him - the ifrit was already scrambling to escape, fleeing from the flame and hoping it would not give chase. In the hopes of relief, he circled around and away from the fire, toward the mural and its soothing light. A spattered trail of blood and gruesomely melted scale fragments marked the path of his retreat.

[kilnarak]

[ Ari briefly takes the lens to look through it, but in doing so drops his box. He does not retrieve it. He also intends to keep the fire burning as long as he can. While he wants to go to Marchelute, he lets Sara stop him and will listen to her. ]

Ari shifted his grip on the items, tucking the effigy and the horn safely beneath his arm. He intended to do the same with the box, but he fumbled it and it fell with a loud clatter to the floor. He flinched at the sound, but didn't bother picking it up again - it didn't seem worth the trouble. While he kept flame in one of his hands, he took the looking glass from Sara with the other, peering through it as Sara directed. He looked toward the darkness and finally saw Marchelute, Marchelute and a man with a knife.

"Marche-...?" Ari drew a sharp breath, and still holding the looking glass and the fire, took a half-step toward them - Sara's shout and restraining arm brought him short. He looked to her, wide-eyed with a startled sort of hurt. He listened to her, however, despite his desire to be reunited with his mate, and reluctantly he let her usher them away, back toward the opposite side of the room.

"So-So we hurt each other? We can't... We can't... help each other?" It was definitely a nightmare. He bit his lip, then gave Sara back the glass. It was too tempting, seeing where Marche was and being unable to go to him. It was better if he couldn't see.

"We... We can't go forward, they're in the way. But... but if we go back... The only-only way is the door with the face...?" He was willing to listen to Sara, to do as she suggested - he still felt that destroying the darkness in the corner was the best course of action, but he couldn't do that now, not with Marchelute and his knife-wielding friend retreating that way. "T-Tell him... Tell him I'm here?"

[jarahamee]

[Cassius scans the area for anything of note, and would investigate the room. He is in a hurry to move onwards from the confines of this area]

Cassius used the torch to light the way as he looked for anything worth noting in this strange, and oppressive room.  There must be something. It could not mean nothing, no. And yet, he knew the inherent nonsense might have no meaning at all. It may just be an obstacle for them to die doing. He half remembered previous years' October nightmares, and wondered if this was one of them. 

He scoured the darkness with his eyes, and made note of the exits around him, keeping mental track of the young draconic being near him. The kid might need his help. 

My useless, naked human help.

He reminded himself, though he was far from helpless when naked. Especially armed with a torch like this one. Then again, who could defend themselves from ghosts and incorporeal beings without magic? 

Surely they must be something. And what was the best door to leave from this time? He felt about as if looking for the strange stroke of fortune he had in the past. 

[Sharei]

[OOC: Draggo goes to the far end of the hall and opens the door, eager to be away from the weird sensations.]


The juvenile peered up at the ceiling, though he wasn't looking at it particularly. He was looking for the presence in the air, the weight, like a smothering blanket of ill intentions. It sent a prickle of danger down his spine, warning him away as a deer might sense the wolf. They had to leave. Otherwise... otherwise...

He didn't know, and that was the most worrying.

"We should move on," he said and hurried to the far door at the end of the hall, in the same direction he'd been traveling initially. He gave the door an experimental touch, felt for any kind of trap or trigger along the edges, and then pushed it open.

[MP]

All: There is a pang through your chest, like the toll of a bell. Like the crack of an eggshell. Another creeping chill runs over your skin, and you sense that it's getting worse. Something is hunting for you.


Edge and Marchelute:
Edge's items: chipped knife
Marchelute's items: falconer's glove, silver chain

No matter how Edge carves at the bricks and mortar, he can't seem to mark the floor. It feels like ordinary stone to his senses, but the knife strikes it without so much as a scratch. One of the bricks catches the knife tip, which chips off with a sharp ping, leaving the blade useless for thrusting. Stone or not, the structure seems impervious to normal damage. 

No one has answered his shouting. Not Faolan; not the shifter, if she really is in the room. The deadly fires say nothing, though it does seem as though they're keeping to a distance. The two groups are now on opposite ends of the mural - Edge and Marchelute by the missing fragment of wall and the crowned leading figure, and the twin fires by the mass of gargantuan jaws. 

From this distance, Edge and Marchelute are out of range of the lethal light. However, the damage has already been done. The parts of their bodies that were exposed to the light are a mess of blisters and burns. The pain hits them in constant throbbing waves.

No - more than pain. The sense of accumulation, growing all this while, finally ticks over. Somewhere beyond the wall across from the mural, Edge and Marchelute feel the same terrible pang as before, sharp and sickly and somehow eager in their minds. 


Kira:
Items: king's seal, carved fragment

Dust settles over Kira's fur like a fresh snow, tickling her nostrils, whiting out her fur. The sound of palms over stone grows closer. Closer. She hears something dragging itself down the tunnel. Toward the opening to her room. Its skin scrapes the walls with a dry, fleshy sound, and the entrance dims as something moves past it. Kira can smell the iron tinge of blood.

But the thing keeps crawling. Down the tunnel, after her decoy trail of dust. The fleshy sounds fade down the righthand passage. The dust resettles. Kira is alone in the room, just another white-coated lump.

The two shapes lying by the wall are motionless. Now that Kira is closer, she can see that one - the shape closer to the room's entrance - is vaguely humanoid. She can make out the curve of a skull, the shape of limbs, curled in on themselves. It lies in front of the second shape as if praying to it. This second shape is harder to identify. It's as circular and lumpy as a bird's nest, closer to the burbat's size. 

There's no approaching sound from the tunnel. No sound from the objects here. For the present, Kira appears to be in the clear. 


Ari, Sara, Hau, and Grace:
Ari's items: hunting horn, human effigy
Sara's items: old spear, broken knife, seeing stone
Hau's items: maned pelt, rusty knife
Grace's items: burning torch, rusty knife

With the rediscovery of his mate, with the fire in his hands, with the strange haze of exhilaration over his mind, Ari's confidence and mental momentum reaches an almost fevered height. He knows better than anyone else what to do - can do it best - and Sara's assumptions and orders spark a sudden stab of irritation. Not even the low, earthen crackle from where the shadowy masses have retreated can dampen the feeling.

Despite the security of the fire, Hau feels the sudden impression of claustrophobia, not his own. He feels a weight pressing in around him, trapping his arms, his legs, preventing him from reaching the intruders. He wants to move. Wants to stretch - wake up - as the strength flows back into his bones.

And the kitsune does feel better, now that the foreign feeling passes. He feels stronger than he has any right to, considering his injuries. The wounds still throb painfully, but they don't seem to be as deep as he thought. 

Meanwhile, Grace has followed Sara's warnings and moved back from the hallway door, putting the group closer to the muraled wall. She's close enough to see detail in the wall: a pattern of claws reaching from the top and bottoms of the panel; a massive set of jaws facing the left half of the scene, which is completely obscured by the dark. Just beside the mural, in the righthand corner nearest to them, a deep red flame winks to life, visible to all four of them. Unlike the green fire or Hau's earlier foxfire, it seems to cast no light on its surroundings.

"You'd better put them back." A woman's voice out of the flame. Grace can hear her perfectly, but none of the others seem to notice the sound. The flame drifts closer. Then, slyly, as if sharing a secret between them: "But maybe you don't want them back. That would be more fun."


Cassius and Draggo:
Cassius' items: burning torch, sturdy rope
Draggo's items: broken flint necklace

Cassius conducts a thorough scan of the room, but there doesn't seem to be anything of note on the walls. All he sees on the ground is old dust; old rubble; the dead woman at their feet. Her blood coats the undersides of their feet, and meaty pulp sticks between their toes. Nothing especially noteworthy.

However, the officer's keen eyes catch an additional detail. The woman appears to have a leather strap around her shoulders - another salvaged object from the ruins, from the aged look of it. Whatever the object is, it's buried under the rocks with the rest of the woman. Cassius can easily shift them if he takes the time. However, farther up the pile, in the gap at the top, something in the rocks is stirring.

As the eye fixes on it, the shape blooms larger. Shifts like loose debris. But it's grey and bulbous, and its surface is too crusty, too fleshy to be stone. It strains upward, formless, faceless. The sight is uncomfortably like a snake's egg, the hatchling pushing from inside. As it moves, a creeping film of gray bleeds over the rocks. It's several yards from them still, and so far slow. 
 
The dragon's door opens slowly, but without issue. It reveals a small square room with a door opposite their own. The walls are set with alcoves all around, each occupied by a life-sized human statue. The flat stone gazes are fixed on a small altar at the center of the room, which is flat with a circle of strange indentations in its surface. From the doorway, these two features are all that can be seen. 

Hearing, however, is another matter. As he stands in the doorway, the dragon hears a familiar voice behind him. There's a strain in Sarkany's voice that doesn't belong there. His words hitch oddly, as if the speaker is having trouble controlling his breath.

Ye oua. A pause. And then: Up now.

The words trail off in a tired breath. There's no sign of the tiercel when the dragon turns.

[jarahamee]

[Cassius calculates, and then takes the strap on the bag, and gives it a hard tug to try to free it from under the stones. He does not linger too long, however, as he has the distinct sense whatever that is is not friendly. He would attempt to follow Draggo into the next room. ]

Cassius spent a moment searching, and somehow, the body of the woman came to his attention again. She had something of interest around her shoulder that she would no longer need. The object found seemed important to him. Something about it stood out. Maybe she found a key... Or maybe it was nothing at all. Another bag that had hardly any use, or perhaps, some trinket from the ruins that had no relevance in this world.

He reached towards the strap to see if he could pull it free, with some strategic stone lifting, when suddenly the shift happened. Something was forming on top of the pile, and the feeling in his gut was that it was anything but friendly, and he was going to have to leave this place, and fast.

Cassius would attempt to shift a rock and pull the bag free, but if it did not come quickly or easily, he would release it and hurry after Draggo towards the square room with the statues, and with an effort to close the door behind them. Whatever this woman had, it had not been enough to save her, and it was not worth dying over, at least, not yet.

[NightshadeVII]

[OOC: Hey ho, another round of panic Edge. As he begins to feel the presence hunting them, Edge knows that he needs to hurry and find Faolan. He cuts his hand and uses his blood to ask Sara if she’s seen Faolan.]

Even though the pain was constant and throbbing still at least he didn’t feel like he’d keel over and die any minute now. The Darai turned to check on Marchelute, grimacing as he saw the what the other had endured as well. This place really wasn’t forgiving at all. But at least things seemed to have calmed down for the moment.

Then he felt it, this strange new sensation, a toll in his chest, a shift in the air around him, a chill down his spine. Immediately the Darai knew he wasn’t alone. There was something in here, something that was coming for all of them.
This was what reminded him of why he was here, why he had come here. Faolan. He was still out there, he had to be. And if he was all alone, with this unknown thing on the hunt, Edge had to get to him and soon. For a moment, Edge forgot to breathe. Why was he wasting time here? Of course, he wanted to help all those he could help, but right now, he knew these people were a group, they had safety in numbers. He knew nothing about Faolan’s situation, only that he had screamed for help, sounded so terrifed. Edge had to help him, no matter what, he couldn’t give up on Faolan.

Maybe Sara had seen him. He doubted it, since Faolan would probably be with the redhead then, but he had to give it a shot. He had to ask her. The knife hadn’t worked and now the blade was chipped unfit to stab anything. There didn’t seem to be any ink of other liquids lying around either, that could be used to write with. Then he looked down at the knife again. The tip had chipped off, but the sides of the blade seemed fine. Besides, he was already in pain as it was, what difference would this make? He had had worse.
Before he had time to hesitate, Edge cut open his palm, hissing under his breath and clenching his hands shortly. Then he dropped to his knees again, dipping his finger in the blood and writing on the floor as close to Sara as he dared:
Faolan. He’s here. Have you seen him?

[Pearl Dragon]

[Kira can't believe her luck. The moment the thing is gone and sounds far enough away, she heads back the way she'd come. She'll head to the ashen-smelling passage instead. Unfortunately she's too much in a Nope-Mode to investigate the lumps.]

As she huddled in her hiding spot, covered in snowy dust and pressing the shirt to her mouth and nose, a growing dread rose with every inch that the thing got closer. When it finally entered the dusty space, Kira felt an icy spike of fear grip her almost immediately followed by that same odd stabbing pain in her chest from before.  She was certain that it would now turn straight towards her and shoot across the room to grab her, there was not an ounce of doubt in her mind. She couldn't do it again, she couldn't!  Even the air had a new, ominously hunting feel to it.

She watched its shape move through the milky dust, and.....keep moving. It followed her false trail straight through and out once again with no incident. Not even a pause. Kira stared after it, fearfully dumbfounded. It didn't see her? Was that even possible here? Disbelief spread across her features as she watched it disappear again and even had a maddening urge to call after it that it had passed her. Of course, she didn't, that would be silly.

When she was sure it was gone, Kira looked back towards the way she'd come and immediately began to move that way as silently as she could. If Fate was going to give her this random card of luck, she wasn't going to pass it by. There was no way she was going to follow after it, the dust was too thick and would risk a sneeze or a cough. And, she figured it would eventually figure out that it had been tricked and could turn right around on her at any given moment.

Instead, she headed back down the tunnel and towards the ashen scented passageway. The moment she smelled it, she would detour in that direction. It hadn't seemed a safe option then, but now she didn't have much of a choice. She could only hope the dust that coated her body and the strange smell of this new way would mask her scent enough to keep the thing from following her again.  

[beastly]

Ooc: Grace feels pain,feels the dread. She is startled by the fire lady voice, and asks it what it means.

Grace grips her chest, panic and dread creeping into her ribcage to fill the space inside her lungs with fear. She doesn't want to hurt anyone, so maintains her distance.

The bigfoot lady nearly jumps out of her skin, the strange fire catching her off guard. Okay, she's ok, one of her friends does fire-

And then it speaks, and she yelps.

"W-What?? Put them back? What back?"
She looks at her friends, to confirm they hear this too. It doesn't seem like it.

[Vaitris]

[OOC: Hau tries to figure out what Grace is talking about. He doesn’t trust the sudden appearance of the red flame and tries to move her away from it. As he does, he warns Sara and Ari about it as well.]

There was twist of pain in Hau’s chest, separate from what he’d been enduring so far. There was something out there. That circling presence perhaps? Tired of watching from afar and ready to come finish the hunt? The corner they had backed into felt suddenly small, the safe circle of the fire confining. He was pinned, he couldn’t move. Hau shook his head, aware in some way that these sensations weren’t his, but he couldn’t begin to understand where they came from or what they meant. Clenching his fingers tighter around the figurine, he tried to push the feelings out of his mind.

"W-What?? Put them back? What back?"

“What are you talking about?” Hau asked in a whisper, further spooked by Grace’s unprovoked questioning. Glancing around, he tried to figure out what she was responding to but there was nothing there. Nothing except a strange red flame that he didn’t recall seeing before. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for it, it wasn’t burning anything, it wasn’t even throwing any light. But as he was looking at it, it began to drift closer. Hau backed away, grabbing Grace’s arm as he did so, trying to take her with.

In the course of his retreat, he sidled up next to Sara and Ari. “We should get out of this corner.” He’d point out the red flame if they didn’t appear to have seen it yet.

[Sharei]

[ OOC: Draggo calls for Kanagi, upset by the sound and apparent distress his dad is in, but is cut off by Cassius closing the door. The fact that he can't see Kanagi either makes him even more stressed, but he collects himself and goes to examine the alter. He fully expects the statutes to come to life to try and hurt them and warns Cassius, "be careful, statutes usually come to life in any serious dungeon. They'll probably try to hurt us." ]

[tsukikoko]

[OOC: Mutters under her breath at whatever caused the pang in her chest, telling it to 'fuckin' come at me ya wanker'. Agrees with Hau to back away and encourages towards the trove/hallway so as not to encroach on Marche/Edge. Sara thinks she can see one of the figures moving forward through the seeing glass and darts away from the fires to investigate. When she realises he's writing a message she goes back into the flame circle to catch her breath, cuts herself on the tail with her spear to give herself 'ink', then darts back out to write a short reply - since she can't breathe out there for long. Might have to make multiple trips to catch her breath.]

Message = No. Heard only.. hurt you, sorry. Ari here.

[Marshmallow]

[Summary: Marche is in a lot of pain and tries to avoid any further contact with the scalding fire. The sudden pang and chill down his spine make him anxious, but the appearance of more bloody writing just at the edges of the firelight keeps him from leaving the room. With the sense of something present beyond the wall across from them, he urges Edge to warn Sara and Co. not to go that way, if he can. Realizing this seems to be the only way they can communicate, he creeps a little closer to the firelight and uses a scalded hand to smear a single word across the stone in his blood: "Dragon?" in hopes someone has seen Draggo. ]

[MP]

Cassius and Draggo:
Cassius' items: burning torch, sturdy rope,
Draggo's items: broken flint necklace

With a final push, the crusted mass wriggles out from the floor. It slides down the rubble with a wet sound, curled and grub-like. Rising. The grey residue blooms from the spot where it emerged, creeping toward Cassius' feet. 

The officer shifts stones and pulped meat aside. The crusted figure is moving. Trudging toward him with slow, heavy steps. He can see a sealed leather pouch slung over the woman's shoulder. Can see the shadow of the creature, falling over him. His fingers dig through splintered bones and ruined flesh. Rip through it. And then the strap is free.

The creature lurches forward, armless, reaching with its crusted face. Cassius's shoulder burns where it grazes him, the flesh going grey. But the thing misses its hold, and the officer is free to escape after the dragon and shut the door behind him.  

"What?" Sarkany's voice says from behind him, still with the same hitching breaths. "Never seen a sludge beast before?"

Despite their obvious entrance, the dragon finds the statues so far unresponsive. Their faces are smooth and oddly child-like, but this does little to ease the weight of the blank stone eyes. They look to the altar - always the altar- seeming to wait for something.

The altar is waiting too. It's empty, oddly expectant. Now that he examines the surface, the dragon can see that the indentations there once held a circle of slotted objects. Some of these indentations are littered with powered rock and, in several cases, the stumps of tiny feet. Three of the slots are empty altogether.

A shower of dust falls from the door they came from. Slowly, slowly, it begins to push open. A crackle of crust and flesh comes from the other side.


Edge and Marchelute:
Edge's items: chipped knife
Marchelute's items: falconer's glove, silver chain

Edge's palm stings badly where the knife has sliced it. The ancient blade can't be the healthiest thing for an open wound. But not long after Edge's message has been scrawled over the stone, a response appears nearby, at a safe distance from the flame. 

No. Heard only.. hurt y-

It seems to take some time for these messages to appear. The writing breaks off halfway. The flames drift closer to the far left door. There is now a third flame among them, this one a deep, angry red.

-ou, sorry. Ari here.

The words have resumed. Completed. But there is a streak at the end of the last word, the e strangely smeared, that suggests the word may have been interrupted or incomplete. Marchelute's fresh contribution stains the bricks, awaiting a response.


Kira:
Items: king's seal, carved fragment

The scent of old ash fills Kira's nostrils as she turns down the unexplored branch. Now that she's closer, she can smell new undertones in it: rot and blood, cinnamon, and a smell like wet clay. There's an opening ahead of her. With the walls so tight around her, Kira is forced to face it head on. 

The burbat drops from a hole several feet up the wall. She hits the ground with a wet squelch, landing on something grey and sticky. She's in a short ruined hallway, narrow and almost as dim as the tunnel, with an open door at the far end. The walls around her are scored by blackened gashes. The floor is littered with rubble and cracked bones and more of the scattered grey tar. Amid the wreckage, a massive armored figure lies on its back.

The fallen giant is covered head to toe. Its gauntlets and visor, intricately carved, bear countless score marks. Its plate has been cracked open, exposing its chest for all to see. Instead of flesh, the fissure contains etched patterns, silent mechanisms, and a runed lump in the center of the chest, split down the middle. This creature can't possibly be human. 

The man lying by the door, however, is another matter. He's pushed himself upright to watch Kira, his yellow eyes animal and appraising. But despite his alertness, he doesn't seem in much shape to defend himself. One of his legs is badly torn down the calf and ankle, raked as if with claws, and is still oozing blood and wisps of gold. He's used his shirt to bandage the wounds, but this only reveals the full extent of the damage to his body.

His chest and neck are grey as if with rot, the skin blistered and sickly. The flesh along his forearms is more severely marked, perhaps defensive wounds. The grey sludge lies in heaps across his lap, across the huge notched sword resting there, burying him up to the stomach. He shifts a little more of it off of him, still watching the burbat. Quirks a faint smile at her.

"What? Never seen a sludge beast before?" 

His breathing is shallow and erratic, and the words hitch in spite of the wry attempt.


Ari, Sara, Hau, and Grace
Ari's items: hunting horn, human effigy
Sara's items: old spear, broken knife, seeing stone
Hau's items: maned pelt, rusty knife
Grace's items: burning torch, rusty knife

Dusty, earthen sounds emanate from the corner, seeming to follow the dark. The two shadowy patches - the figures within them - have moved out of the black corner, into the no-man's land of semi-darkness, to look at Sara's piecemeal message. Their darkness compounds with the room's, extending the black part of the room beyond its natural boundaries. For Hau and Grace, retreating back toward the trove door, the sheer size of the room leaves them a comfortable distance. For Sara, writing in such close proximity to the dark, each trip beyond the fire is a suffocating, near-blind experience. 

The scrape of her finger over rock seems to echo through an unnatural silence.  Objects catch at her skin when she stands to retreat to the fires. Maybe a clasp. Maybe the hilt of a sword. The cloud of living shadows are disorienting, blotting out walls and doors and statues. The shapes caught within them seem to fuzz and swim.  

"Your powers," the flame prompts Grace. "You stole those, right? Trapped them, right? You'll have to put them back."

It seems to flicker for a moment. Thinking, maybe. Then the voice giggles - a cold, ugly sound.

"Oops - too late," it says in a lilting singsong. "Too bad, so sad, they're mad." The words break off in a gleeful cackle, and the fire winks out.

Sara is on her second trip into the no-man's land, scrawling out the second half of her message in the gloom cast by the shades. She's on the last word. Tracing the curve of the e. But just as she completes the letter, her arm jolts to a stop. There's a hand on her wrist, cold and stony. A pair of blank clay eyes stares down into her own.

Where the shades overlap with each other, extending the black area and amplifying the gloom, the soldiers' silhouettes are beginning to stir. The nearest has reached down as Sara writes, seizing hold of her. As the group watches, its neighbor moves. It leaves its place and begins a slow, heavy march toward the redhead. It reaches out as it nears her, shedding dust and clay with the same earthen crackle as before.