Darky
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Post by Darky on Oct 1, 2021 12:57:21 GMT -6
And.. shimmery. The sphinx had to crane her head a little, leaning in closer to the floor to better catch the diffusion of light from the torch. But no, it wasn't some trick of the light or perceptional illusion, there really was a type of glinting coming through the opaque calcite covering the floor.. and it was all purple.
Ras, ever the suspicious pessimist, regarded the tunnel with a new found sense of distain. His claws rakes against the floor of the tunnel lightly, leaving some gouges though nothing too deep, and he didn't like what he felt as he did so. Too soft, too hard.. Not right. He grumbled, tapping the foot against the floor. The sphinx had to take a moment to parse the meaning out of it, but eventually realized he meant the upper layer was still the softer calcite while the rock beneath was.. something else. Something much tougher. Rising to her feet, the sphinx scratched the back of her head beneath the helmet.
"Well, we might as well see what's out there, then."
(153) Darky: 153 Ras Dashen: 107 (3/5) / 107 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 1, 2021 13:02:36 GMT -6
She reached out her hands and drew them in a slow circle before herself, a motion of something spinning into itself, before pushing them outwards. The start of the motion stirred the air within the tunnel and the blanket of fog seemed to almost take a breath inwards towards them. Then, as the hands stretched out, the air became a breeze pushed outwards, shoving the fog backwards with a sudden billowing. And suddenly, as easy as that, there was a clear opening in the fog, an eye of clean air centered on them.
The torchlight reached to every corner and inch of the space, only stopped again by the fog which had been pushed some dozen meters away. The sphinx even dared to flick on the flashlight, to add to the regained visibility once more. Suddenly a hundred different glimmering spots erupted out of the darkness, shining back from wherever either light source was pointing, dulled only by a faint film of semi-opaque calcite.
(154) Darky: 154 Ras Dashen: 107 (4/5) / 107 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 1, 2021 13:13:58 GMT -6
The scenery was breathtaking in itself, but the fact everything gleaming back in a distinctly royal purple hue really helped seal the deal. The sphinx's mouth gaped a moment, as she lowered her hands and slowly spun around to take in the sight. The floors, ceiling, wall, everything.. Whatever made up the tunnel as a whole seemed almost carved out of whatever this bright purple stone was, almost as if they were travelling through a giant amethyst geode washed smooth by the centuries.
Well.. That could certainly explain the strange fog, because the terrain itself was hardly what she would have called natural. And perhaps Ras had the right of it to be suspicious of it, for she could hardly tell what would happen if they tried mining into this. Was it fragile? It looked like crystal, albeit heavily buried under layers of sediment. Would it crack and spider out across the tunnel? Cause a cave-in? Or would it be more closer to regular stone?
Certainly a lot of questions which then didn't have very specific answers..
(155) Darky: 155 Ras Dashen: 108 (0/5) / 108 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 3, 2021 3:33:26 GMT -6
Although she had done her best to read up on minerals over the years, none of them quite fit this specific form of it.. Perhaps the comparison to amethyst was poignant, for it seemed the closest equivalent, but no amethyst would ever grow so large as to form a whole tunnel onto its own.. And if that was the case, it could also cause it to be rather sharp stone, for it was more a crystal than rock itself. The sphinx approached one of the walls, bringing up the pickaxe tentatively. Lightly, she tapped against the surface layer of the wall with the flat of its side, and the tunnel sounded in a chime-like resonance as noise became translated to odd sort of sound.
Both mammalian and gargoyle paused, exchanging glances. So, this was certainly new to the both of them, making Ras fidget all the more uncomfortably. 'New and strange' weren't exactly his best companions, especially when it came to being a whole other type of territory to what he was used to.
(156) Darky: 156 Ras Dashen: 108 (1/5) / 108 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 3, 2021 6:39:44 GMT -6
But something also told the sphinx this rock couldn't be so easily mined. To bring back a sample of it would have been nice, if no other reason to satisfy her curiosity, but given every surface was encased in another layer of rock entirely meant they could well need to spend hours to dig through the 'film' layer to get to the heart of it. And making their presence very clear throughout the process, if the surface layer was this resonant.
So, with a heavy heart, she stepped away from the wall and guided the gargoyle to keep going forwards. A task not at all so simple considering the strong urge to know more, to quite literally dig deeper and further, discovering something that could potentially be new knowledge entirely! ..But also the smarter move for the time being. And who knew? If they were lucky, they might find the source of this formation and get the answers that way.
(157) Darky: 157 Ras Dashen: 108 (2/5) / 108 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 3, 2021 7:37:00 GMT -6
As they continued down the tunnel, there sense of awe was only somewhat unsettled by the vague sense of continued unease. Not for any one specific reason, although the soft chiming still echoing through the tunnels wasn't helping matters much. At any other given point it might have been a comforting sound, but so deep below the earth in pitch-black darkness with a fog circling them from front and back it made for a certain kind of atmosphere.. The sphinx wasn't sure if it was just a natural background resonance the crystals produced or if their footsteps were adding to it in some form or fashion, but ultimately there didn't seem to be a way to avoid it, either. Perhaps if they floated, or flew but..
Ah, didn't much matter. The fog had obscured things long enough from before that they could have already crossed quite a distance in the tunnel and not realized when the crossover happened. If something did reside here, it would have long since noticed them.
(158) Darky: 158 Ras Dashen: 108 (3/5) / 108 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 3, 2021 7:51:03 GMT -6
But, it didn't mean they couldn't take a bit more precaution regardless, and quite truthfully the fog had become bothersome not just for her, but the gargoyle as well. So once the two reached the edge where the fog resume, the sphinx paused the gargoyle and stepped up to it, slowly making another circular motion with the hands. But where the motion had been calm before, this one swept them out forward with more force, the air around them stirring and suddenly gusting down the tunnel in a long, forceful line. A true wind, rather than a mere breeze, it stirred and dispersed the fog within seconds, leaving only traces of it to linger on the edges near the walls.
Shaking her wrist, the sphinx was much more happier seeing the emptiness ahead of them, than the film of smoke they had been dredging through. It was still darkness, but at least the light could shine further and they can make out more details, as the tunnel slowly variously shifted between shades of violet and blue, the further it went.
(159) Darky: 159 Ras Dashen: 108 (4/5) / 108 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 3, 2021 8:03:38 GMT -6
"That's a bit more like it," the sphinx smiled, looking to Ras, "At least now we can see something."
The gargoyle was certainly glad of that, even if he was bad at admitting it. Empty, he thought back, and she could almost feel his eyes narrowing in on the newly unveiled surroundings. Nevermind that 'empty' was sometimes better than 'full'. For example, when a tunnel wasn't full of tunnel worms.
But it wasn't entirely empty either, as the two soon found out. Similar to before, patches of the tunnel floor still had small piles of debris, either from ages past or carried there by something. The sphinx felt a surge of excitement when the first shadow of those came into view, hoping it might be a fragment of the wall they could take with them. Alas, it was mostly just the calcite coating it, without a crack deep enough to reach the purple, but as she dug through the pile she did come across a shard of azurite. Not quite mysterious purple wall crystal, but still a good find otherwise.
(160) Darky: 160 - (added) Ras Dashen: 109 (0/5) / 109 (0/5)
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Post by Nadia on Oct 6, 2021 12:53:03 GMT -6
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
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Post by Darky on Oct 6, 2021 13:18:09 GMT -6
At first she thought it was excitement, that part within giving a spike of energy at the find, but focusing more on it made her pause and look around. No, this was something different.. Something familiar yet not so much as to be frequent. And strong, enough so that even Ras was able to pick up on her little emotional bandwidth getting a sudden spike and immediately assume an alert posture. He didn't know magic stones from any other stone, apart from the fact they tended to glow, but he was starting to pick up some mannerism from observing her.
And it was he who spotted the pile with the green crystal dragon on top first. The gargoyle's back arched, his spikes looked spikier and his face was a beaked grimace in his best approximation of a scowl. Another of the gem-walkers.. Others had proven troublesome in the past, so his instinct was to protect, even if the mammalian's was to befriend them. Intruder, his thoughts flashed and the sphinx looked to where he had been pointed, seeing the odd sight (And feeling that vibe from somewhere within the same direction).
To be fair, if there was any sort of intruder, it was more them, but she understood his general meaning.
(161) Darky: 161 Ras Dashen: 109 (1/5) / 109 (1/5)
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Post by Nadia on Oct 6, 2021 14:49:35 GMT -6
The dragon doesn't stir. It must be in a deep sleep, or feels it is in a safe spot - you'd think that vibrations would wake it up. Who knows how accustomed it must've gotten to people bashing the walls. It may be down to you to make the first move...
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 7, 2021 8:07:01 GMT -6
Ah, hmm.. Well that certainly put the two against a predicament of sorts. Generally speaking the underground denizens were quite lively and alert, and it was more them that got on the backfoot than the familiars. For the barest of seconds a worry strikes her, wondering if the dragon might even be alive, given they didn't exactly heave breaths like regular creatures.. but there's enough evidence of minute movements and twitches to suggest yes, even if the eyes are hollow cavities both open and proverbially closed.
They could try to sneak past it.. Leave it undisturbed where it was. But somehow she suspected the familiar wasn't in a deep enough sleep to slumber through the rumbling of a mining cart rolling by. And much like bandaids, some pains were better pre-emptive than a shock.
So she crouched down a safe distance from the mineral dragon and cleared her throat. In case that wasn't enough, she lightly tapped the flat of the mining pick against the crystalline ground as well, hoping it was a slight enough noise to wake it gradually rather than spook it.
(162) Darky: 162 Ras Dashen: 109 (2/5) / 109 (2/5)
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Post by Nadia on Oct 8, 2021 8:36:17 GMT -6
Tap, tap. The dragon hears some movement, and stirs in its position - its wings stretch as it lifts its head from the pile of stones. How can it be comfortable on such a bed? It glances around, and then freezes when it catches sight of you. A subtle hiss is exhaled. What business do you have here?
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 8, 2021 8:54:51 GMT -6
Well, that was certainly more like it. Like as not, the sphinx had to smile to herself, now that familiar had reasserted itself in reality. And before the gargoyle could respond with his own haughty 'wot' clacking, she reached out a placed a hand on his back. "Easy, there.. We're here to make friends, not enemies."
The gargoyle settled, though his beak gave a restrained grinding noise as he held himself back by the barest of notions. Not friend, he huffed, sitting down.
"Not yet," the sphinx corrected him, patting his shoulder, "But could be."
Now that the dragons attentions were caught, it was time to start off the general contact process. She approached a few steps, but laid her pickaxe down first, to show she had no intent to harm it. Indeed, even against flesh-and-blood things the sphinx's 'claws' were more dull nails than anything, so they could hardly be a cause for concern to the dragon. "Hey, there.. Sorry to bother you, but we're not here to fight. Just passing by. Would that be okay?"
(163) Darky: 163 Ras Dashen: 109 (3/5) / 109 (3/5)
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Post by Nadia on Oct 13, 2021 5:50:38 GMT -6
It's a good job the dragon seems more interested in you than your gargoyle. It watches you closely, glancing between you and the pickaxe - it doesn't look like you have malicious intentions. To greater surprise, it stretches out its limbs and shuffles on its bed of stones to get more comfortable. Is it... going back to sleep?!
[Congratulations, you have successfully tamed the creature!]
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