Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 7:50:07 GMT -6
Ras Dashen Level: 72 (0/5) / Loyalty: 72 (0/5) Stamina: 2 Strength: 3 Resistance: 5 Dexterity: 3 Mentality: 2 Special Abilities: Earth Resistance Moves: Dig, Beak Break
Taught Tricks: Name, No, Follow, Tack Up, Search, Pull Buggy, Get^ (pointed at)
In life there inevitably came moments where one stopped, thought, and asked themselves this question: what am I doing in this moment of time, this stage of life, this existence of mine? Often enough the answers would become something insightful, inspiring, motivational and even life altering. To cause a person to re-evaluate their circumstances and cause them to choose to chart new paths and roads, new beginnings, old ends. A life, a-new.
This was not one of those moments.
Darky stood in the middle of the cavern, deeper down the tunnels than she’d ever dared map on her little worn parchment, and stared out into the darkness. She was in almost full battle regalia, the helmet replaced by the hardhat for safety reasons and the sword swapped for a wrist-blade for the purpose of close quarter self-defense. For the deeper they delved, the tighter the corners, lower the ceilings and narrower the passages.
Ras stood beside her, the lowered dimness of the crystal torch barely drawing the outline of his black stone body, even though the ribbon around his neck had a faint greenish glow of its own. The sphinx had not dared turn on the flashlight for the past half hour, ever since they entered the no-mans-land of her little map, delving deeper into the ever increasing darkness.
This was not one of those life-affirming moments. This was, in simplest terms, a hunt.
(1) Ras Dashen: 72 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 7:50:46 GMT -6
A hunt for hire, for a nest. On some level of her thoughts this seemed so ridiculous - she’d never even encountered a sarane in the mountains, much less ever stumbling upon a nest of one. Indeed, thinking back it was difficult to recall even coming across sign of one’s passing through the tunnels, but then, she had yet to delve as deep as this.
And even here, they were merely at the edge of their assignment.
A call had gone out for a treasure lost, a treasure in need of recovery. It seemed almost storybook that such treasure would end up in a dragon’s hoard. Though the owner had not specified its make they ensured one would definitely recognize it when one saw it. It wasn’t much to go on, but Darky took their word for it. Much more helpful was the owner’s narrowing of the search area - the sarane that had snatched the treasure would have had to inhabit this general tunnel network, they figured, but where exactly they didn’t know. Seemingly daunting a prospect at first the sphinx was actually quite glad of the information. After all, better to search but a part of an entire mountain, than, well.. the entire mountain.
(2)
Ras Dashen: 72 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 7:51:27 GMT -6
It was this quest that sought them to delve down here so armed and ready, rather than the much more lightly equipped method of her usual mountain roaming. The tools were for clearing any potential obstacles (though, should they come across some gems just sitting on the tunnel surfaces, it helped to have something to pry off along the way. After all, there was no guarantee they would find a nest, much less the nest. A little back-up collateral for the dangerous journey helped).
“Well, this is it, Ras,” Darky sighed, dim light of the crystal torch looking down the branching tunnels ahead of them, each one exactly the same as the other. Three tunnel mouths, leading into three passages, and potentially, three completely different areas. They only had so many hours to work with before nightfall (as she suspected that was when the tunnel sarane might become more active, moving towards the surface layers to hunt. It was not a good idea to be around when a sarane was hunting).
It, repeated a new, fresh voice at the back of her head, Ras staring the same tunnels down same as her. It was still weird, to hear him now. They had certainly a deep enough understanding of one another, and an empathic link filling in the gaps where necessary, but this new voice would take time - the tat-lung and equillion each had their flavour of thoughts, of earth and static and cinder, and Cathàn, too, was mostly intensity with a coolness only recently introduced. Compared to those, Ras’ thoughts were slow, solid, heavy, but strangely, not that deep.
(3) Ras Dashen: 72 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 7:52:09 GMT -6
Time ticked onward and the sphinx finally made her decision - rather than choosing any of the three paths, she sat herself down, folding legs and straightening back into an almost meditative posture and looked to the familiar, “Ras, you need to keep watch. Listen and watch the tunnels closely, if anything comes from them, wake me up, but only if something is actually coming. You need to protect me for a little bit, alright?”
The gargoyle’s face often showed little to no expression, but a steely resolve could be barely seen. Guard! he responded in understanding, looking to her. His head then turned to look around the length of the cavern around him, Darky sensing his emotions switching from relative calm to nervous attentiveness. Guard! he said again, this time sounding as if he’s telling it more to himself than her, either as a reminder or a promise.
Darky smiled, “Good, Ras. Hopefully this wont take long.” Then straightened again, placed her hands on her folded knees and took a deep breath in and out. Eyes closed, one hand raised to trace through the air, a dull yellow glow from the back of her head lighting up the area slightly. The fingers traced invisible symbols, she muttered a few short words and the world went black.
Her hand fell back down limply.
( Darky uses Scry (3 Hollow MP) )
(4)
Ras Dashen: 72 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 7:52:40 GMT -6
When she opened her eyes, she sensed a surreal lightness, as if gravity held no sway. This was more or less true - her head turned to look behind her and saw her body still sitting there, eyes closed and posture slightly sagged. Ras stood next to her, buffed up as best a creature of rock could, looking more statue than beast but there was a sharp attentiveness in his features.
How’s that for an outer body experience, quite literally.
There was no time to settle and stop to think of the existential ramifications of the scene before her. While the spell could last a good long while, she also had a fair amount of ground to cover during it and so her spectral consciousness turned, quickly heading down the rightmost of the three tunnels. She could be glad it worked at all, the spell was so freshly learned she had yet to properly test it. So much so that there was an instinct to cover ground in a run, before she realized that was just old muscle memory and she could just as easily let her consciousness float onward.
And hope Ras was able to keep the body safe in the meantime. Somehow she doubted the ribbon connection extended to the spirit form, when it was still tied to her physical self. And the physical self was temporarily indisposed.
(5)
Ras Dashen: 73 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 7:53:20 GMT -6
The end of the first tunnel wasn’t very far off. No more than five minutes of floating invisibly trought the passage she reached a point where the cliff-side dropped off sharply, a vertical shaft cutting through the stone far too wide to cross. Initially she felt a habit of turning around and heading back, but realizing and remembering her current state, paused to stare down and across. Tentatively, she moved over the edge, to the middle of the abyss and felt both thrilled and uneased. Is this what flight was like for the tat-lung? They simply just.. ‘existed’ in air and lacking gravity?
The opposite side was a sheer cliff wall with no tunnel or passage and discernible signs of use. The top went on a ways, but after flying up for a whole minute, Darky gave up on it. The bottom came up much sooner, a jagged series of stalagmite hungrily clawing upwards. A fatal fall for any poor soul unfortunate enough to land on them.
Her form whooshed itself back through the passages, to their little caver. Ras was still largely motionless, only his head turning when he thought to hear a new sound, and her body still unharmed. The spell’s scroll where she learned it from didn’t specify what exactly happened if her body were to be killed in such a state, but the sphinx didn’t need to know deep magic to know it likely was not going to be good.
Instead, she focused on the task at hand and followed the leftmost tunnel.
(6)
Ras Dashen: 73 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 7:53:49 GMT -6
The left was far calmer and more lacking in surprises than the right. It snaked on a longer distance, splitting up a few times, but each one seemed to just go on and on, up and down, left and right and middle. She could have spent an entire week exploring them fully, to see where they ended up, and likely still not found an end to them, for some tunnels followed the paths of ancient dried-out rivers and they would not stop until they found a way out of the mountain itself. A tug on the back of her spiritual form’s mind was her lead back to her body, a thread she instinctively knew she could tug to simply whisk herself back. It was also the only thing keeping her from getting lost.
Even a cartographer's mind could get lost when your paths extended not just ahead, behind and to the sides, but above and below, over and under as well.
The thread was a thin short pulse of energy, likely what life was in her, but it was stable. She still had time left in the spell, but nowhere near enough to explore everything. Where Ras would surely remain standing guard until her bones became dust, her body would need sustenance sooner or later.
So, instead, Darky focused from ahead to beneath her. Everything living left marks of their passage in their surrounding. If she found that, she could trace it back to its ‘core’.
(7)
Ras Dashen: 73 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 7:54:29 GMT -6
The left had no such traces, try as she might to find them. Even in spirit-form, less bothered by the concept of physical restrictions on her sight, it was simply a tunnel, simply a cavern, simply rock. She returned a second time to their cavern, feeling the pulse of her connecting thread grow stronger the closer she got. The connection to Ras as well, though less directional, grew in a similar manner. Between those two, she had a solid anchor and felt less fearful of simply disappearing in the darkness - for all the freedom a spiritual form granted her, it also made her feel so very exposed, the cold darkness pressing far closer to her being than ever before.
The last tunnel, the last hope (or chance, depending on perspectives). She sent her spectral form down the middle path and quickly saw it drop to a slope downwards. Deeper, then, perhaps below all the other tunnels and paths she’d been tracking so far. With a silent whoosh, she was down at the bottom, seeing the tunnel branch off much like all the others had again and intangibly gave a muted sigh.
Well.. Back at it, it seemed.
It took her nearly another thirty minutes to finally spot a patch of rocky wall that seemed different from the rest. ‘Different’, in that it had been racked and racked to near rubble.
A territorial marking.
(8)
Ras Dashen: 73 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 7:57:20 GMT -6
The first bit of hope in an entire hour and then some of fruitless endeavours. She shifted ahead, exploring the surrounding area and in short order found more signs scattered across a wide area - claw-marks, shed scales, clawed earth, over-turned stones, loose teeth.. and bones. The latter she found in a shallow pit of loose soil, edging a larger cavern. They were set too perfectly to be just haphazardly dropped (perhaps a place to store food), and following the piles of bone fragments, busted open for their marrow, she entered the cavern. It was conical, the ceiling gradually arching in on itself, but there were fissures and holes and tunnels covering several sides of the walls. It was almost hive-like, were it not made of stone.
Darky hovered upwards, flitting from hole to hole until dead-stopping near one of them and staring inside - grass, hay, fur, scattered scales.. and eggs.
Staring, she quickly tugged on the thread, the world became a blur of darkness and monochrome and she awoke with a gasp in her own body again.
“I found it,” she said, to herself and to Ras whose head had snapped sharply towards her at the sudden sound, “I know where it is.”
Where, Ras repeated, not one to formulate questions so much as parrot back words in alternating meanings and tone.
Darky raised a hand, pointing down the middle, “There.”
(9)
Ras Dashen: 73 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 7:59:25 GMT -6
The most vital step of their quest had been completed, but the hardest part was still ahead. For all she could tell, there were no sarane visible in the vicinity nor path to the nest. But that didn’t mean there were none at all. The bones seemed freshly cracked, and her spirit form could see quite a lot, but smell next to nothing.
Which brought up a good point, as she stood up, stretching her sore legs and back. The most damage her body had taken was from what she had done to herself, sitting on a cold, hard surface for over an hour, motionless and unable to sense when things from her legs to her butt had fallen asleep. Now, she shook the blood loose as plans and tactics rattled around her brain.
Sarane were notorious for their scent, how else were drakes able to tell when one was more dominant or stronger than the other? Cathàn certainly had a particular affinity for his sense of it, though his was more focused on a very particular scent and taste. Ras had little to worry, a rock creature did not sweat, had no odors beyond the musky scent of rock itself. It was the sphinx who, rather than head down the middle path immediately, made a small detour to the left first.
Somewhere down there she remembered seeing a stream bed with a soft bottom. A bit of mud or sludge across her armour and self should help mask her presence against any nest defender.
(10) Ras Dashen: 74 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 8:00:09 GMT -6
That sorted, she retraced steps with Ras in tow and headed into the middle tunnel, sliding down the slope to land on the bottom, dimming the crystal torch even more. The first marker she found was still some ten minutes ahead of them, but she wasn’t about to take chances.
“Alright, Ras,” she whispered, looking to the familiar, “From here on we have to be very careful and very quiet. Make as little noise as possible. Step carefully. No beak clacking.”
Clack, clack, no, no, Ras’ hollow eyes stared back, beak opening and closing very slowly and very softly. It was a habit of his to grind or click it whenever he felt either frustrated or annoyed or angry or confused or just.. well about most things. But she could feel he intended to try.
“Good, now.. Lets find us a sarane nest,” she smiled and began to retrace the path through the tunnels from scryed memory. The juxtaposition of having been able to simply breeze through here not minutes earlier in contrast to having a heavy body again made for a momentary discomfort, but it was quick to pass. After all, she’d had the body far longer than she had the spiritual form.
(11) Ras Dashen: 74 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 8:00:53 GMT -6
It took a little longer than ten minutes to reach the spot where she had found the first marker, mostly due to the two slowing down their pace in order to be as quiet as possible. Once the rocky territory marking was in sight, the scent of the area really hit her in full, enough so that she had to pull up the bandana over her lower face. Cathàn had his times of.. territorial claiming, but the confined space of the tunnels seemed to just compound the smell into being tenfold as strong. Still, it just meant they were in the right place.
From there onwards the two all but crawled ahead, with the sphinx making slow, light steps, ears and eyes searching every corner and cave entrance for signs of movement or sound, and Ras on her heels, low to the ground, each step deliberate and matching her slow pace. If she was to guess, these marks were the work of the resident drake. The nest itself was likely the work of a hen, but a drake could easily still be around to guard her from other drakes.
The other clues revealed themselves one by one as the two made their way through the tunnels, Darky following the scried path and continuing to dim the crystal torch as much as she dared. Were it up to her, she’d have just turned it off completely, but this was the deep dark and she needed to see where to step.
Gradually, they appeared to make their way unnoticed, as no sound, no movement, no roar or teeth or claws seemed to jump at them from the darkness.
In some ways that was more worrying.
(12) Ras Dashen: 74 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 8:01:32 GMT -6
In short order they had made their silent way to the mouth of the conical cavern itself. Here, she no longer dared to have the torch on at all, turning it off and stowing it, pulling instead the topaz goggles over her eyes. The heat in the depths was little, most of what she saw were toned in deep, dark oranges, but at least she had an outline of the main surfaces, even if some smaller details were too blurry, too same-temperature to make out.
And, looking up at the hive-like pock-marks of hollows in the walls and ceiling, she saw one other thing - one of the hollows was glowing a brighter orange than the rest. There was residual heat still there. Darky pointed towards it from their hiding spot, If I was to guess, that’s our nest over there.
Ras’ gaze followed. Nest.. he mulled, the word understood, but not entirely comprehended.
Ah.. hoard, Darky corrected, That’s our gem hoard.
The gargoyle’s head immediately raised in interested and sudden attention, Hoard!
Yes, hoard. But we need to find something in there. It’s about this big, Darky held out her hands to show space roughly the size of a small melon (the hands seemed almost blindingly radiant in the amber darkness), And made of metal. That was the most the craftsman had described it, confident in there being nothing else like it in the underground.
(13) Ras Dashen: 74 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 8:02:29 GMT -6
As to how one got to the nest, there were several options. All except one of them included climbing, and she didn’t have enough of arcane energy left for the other one. The wall was certainly quite steep, but nothing impossible - after all, the sarane had to get there somehow, seeing as the cavern could have been a little tight for broader wing spans. Out of the two of them Ras had the better eyesight, unbothered by the darkness while the sphinx could only make out about half of what she saw.
So, instructed onward, the familiar slowly inched himself into the cavern, keeping low and putting all of his vaguely decent sneaking ability to use. The sphinx really didn’t need to stress the importance of stealth in their endeavor - he’d been born down here, in the mountains, he knew full well what threat the dark-scaled sarane of the depths could pose and for all intents and purposes, the signs pointed to several inhabiting the area (or a few who were just really lousy at keeping tidy).
Darky remained at the mouth of the cavern, providing surveillance from afar. Good, good.. easy does it, steady and-- her head suddenly jerked upwards, and her body tensed, Ras, stop! Stay! Don’t move! The familiar froze like an obsidian statue, a sense of confusion emanated back at the mammalian.
It had been noiseless, invisible for the black against black of normal vision. But in the amber lenses of the goggles a sudden bright glow poked itself out from the inside of the nest, hanging over the edge.
Claws.
A few seconds later shifting stones produced another glow, this time a muzzle poking out from over the nest edge and a rumbling exhale.
The nest.. was not unguarded.
(14) Ras Dashen: 74 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 26, 2019 8:03:18 GMT -6
When Darky saw the creature reveal itself in its shifting her heart sank to the pit of her stomach, adrenaline rushed up and it took every inch of self control for her to resist instinctively flicking the wrist-blade out. The steel-on-steel sound would have rung through three different tunnels, much less most certainly reach the sarane up in the hollow. More over, she had thought about leaving the bundle of digging tools down on the ground some feet back, but in her scrying had seen the nest empty (or simply not seen the black form in the black pit, pulling herself back far too soon).
She did not move. Ras did not move. The cavern was filled with suffocating silence, save only for the sound of dripping water from a few tunnels over and the shift of the nest lining when the creature had moved. The sphinx was sure her heart beat loud enough to be audible like a drum, but it appeared they were safe.. for now.
So she focused to what she could see. The claws were long and curved, same as all sarane. She could not spot a tail, but the club could have just as easily been too cold against the colder rock for the lenses to pick up. But the snout, the muzzle.. from her perch at the distance it seemed shorter, more studlier.
A hen? A little easier to deal with, perhaps, though even then nothing they really should have risked with.
What do, Ras asked, being the perfect statue.
Darky was silent, only staring up at the nest, then around herself, I’m.. not sure. Hold on.
(15) Ras Dashen: 75 (0/5)
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