Quest: Lakeland Legends [Rai & Mnem]

[seraaches]

This had all of the classic elements of an ambush or a trap. The stallion shifted his position in the group, letting Mnem take the middle area as Leland still had the lead. His ears swivelled back and forth as his natural caution stepped into place again. He caught the heavy scent of something new and strange and his eyes narrowed as he mentally catalogued the smell away in his mind. He hoped he'd have a chance to find out wot it really was so that he'd have a mental image for that scent.

His eyes skimmed their surroundings, eyes going to the torches to estimate how long they'd been burning. His instincts were screaming at him again, but he calmly pushed them away so that the mental anxiety was off to the side and not distracting him. It was a trick his early life in the Marsh had taught him.

His ears flicked back suddenly and he listened closely. Had he just heard something?

[Kiki]

Bee, Jenn and Sera receive 1 token each, to be redeemed in Ashwin's Shoppe. This will automatically be added to your recorded totals in the shoppe. Congratulations, and keep up the good RP!

[The Jenn]

Rai would be able to tell that the torches had been burning for maybe three hours at most, judging from their appearance. They weren't the best quality, being very simplistic in make, and the light they cast served to make shadows jump and twitch along the walls. It was a very unsteady, flickering illumination.

"Very, very quietly," the canine said in an even lower voice than he'd spoken before. If this was the creature's den... dammit, he'd been expecting to come here with the full force of his group behind him, not alone with two strangers and hunting the murderous dogs who killed his Jada.

Visible only to the equine, a small avian form floated near the watery end of the cavern, where the large expanse (and apparently living area) of rock where they stood sloped down and vanished underwater. It seemed to be a connection to the lake as a whole, and possibly the tunnels Leland had spoken of earlier. It was tiny, looking like a child, possibly a sparrow. Its feathers were dripping, Selkie white and blue, and its eyes were full of anxiety. A small 'A' and a Diamond stood out on its breast. "I wish you could hear me," it - he - said wistfully, floating closer. "Or see me. Or know me. But you can't. So what are you doing here?" Expecting no answer or reaction, he drifted around the cavern.

There were a few side-tunnels, more fissures than anything, that the canines might have ducked into. Or they could have tried their luck in the water. Lee lowered his head and began to cautiously sniff around.

[seraaches]

Three hours or so. . . It certainly hadn't taken them that long to get here; only fifteen or twenty minutes. Had the Lowland rot been waiting for the women or simply came upon them and took advantage of the situation? He had no way of knowing.

"*#&$. The epithet was startled out of him by the exceedingly surprising appearance of a child. Specifically, a ghost child. *#&$! His grey-green eyes hardened as his ears flipped forward and he inspected the wet looking boy uneasily.

For all that he occasionally glimpsed ghosts, he very rarely actually tried to interact with them and his last few attempts had not been successful. "Mnem, watch our backs," he ordered in a distracted tone, moving closer to the dead Ace. He fought a need to shudder; why did the little thing look familiar?

"Hello, little one," he tried crooning softly to it, even though he didn't expect the dead boy to respond.

[The Jenn]

The canine was busy carefully sniffing around the edges of the cavern, not feeling comfortable getting too close to the water just yet, or the fissures. If he could figure out which one held the stink of Lowland rot... and the pair wasn't smart enough to cover their tracks. The thick moisture would make things more difficult, but not by much. Hopefully.

As Rai might have expected, the child was unable to hear him or notice his interest. He was bound to this lake, not to any particular person, and waited for someone who wasn't the equine, someone who had never yet returned to the lake's shores. Until he did, the child sparrow would know no peace.

"Why are there people in his cave?" He continued to speak to himself, the sound of his own voice seeming to comfort him a little bit. When all you had was yourself to talk to, you tended to take advantage of it. "He won't like it when he comes back. He stopped liking people a little while ago... because they're mean, and they don't do anything but hurt you. Most of them... Theo..." His voice trailed off, full of sadness.

He glanced once more around the cavern, then floated over to the water and seemed to 'wait' to the side.

[seraaches]

Rai followed the almost aimless wandering of the boy, his brow lowering as he shamelessly eavesdropped on the undertone mutterings. It was difficult to follow even though he could hear all of the words. He? Theo? His eyes narrowed as he continued to follow the Selkie Lakes ghost bird. He followed the boy until the ghost stopped by the water's edge.

This. . . did not look good.

"I think. . . we're about to have a problem." His ears went back as he did another quick scan of the cave. Not only did the muttering make him uneasy, the seemingly watchful nature of the ghost did as well, as though it were waiting for something.

Rai checked on Leland's progress, turning his head slightly as he realized that Mnem was sending him darting, rather baffled and annoyed glances at him. Well, it didn't really matter; he actually needed to know wot the ghost was waiting for.

[Bee]

Yes, Mnem thought sourly, watching the stallion wander about. The problem is you appear to have gone completely batshit. He was talking to air, addressing something unseen and probably non-existent as "little one." And now he was apparently having premonitions, and was very serious about them. Wonderful. Besides which, their entire situation was a problem. They were in a mysterious cave, hunting a sea monster, and had been attacked by crazed Lowlanders. Their problem was present tense, not future.

She glanced somewhat apprehensively around the cave, and wondered if Shinrai's crazy and obsessive paranoia was contagious. She was not in the mood to go mad.

"If the problem is your evidently-declining cognitive skill," she muttered, "then yes, I agree, we're about to have a major problem."

Nevertheless, she stood tense and wary, gaze darting between her companions and the surrounding area. Damn it, his crazy was contagious.

[The Jenn]

Leland wasn't paying attention to the eccentricities of his companions, eyes narrowed to violet slits as he circled the cavern. He'd gone from one side to the other and was investigating the last fissure, on the opposite side from the ghost and near the water. The last fissure that he hadn't explored was, of course, the one that made his hackles rise even further and his lips pull back from his gums. "They slunk into this one," he growled.

Looking back at the two of them for reactions before he went and followed, the whites of his eyes could suddenly be seen as he glanced towards the watery edge. About five feet from where he stood, a head poked out of the water and stared at him. It was extremely difficult to tell what creature the head belonged to beyond 'Selkie' because the long muzzle didn't seem to match the face or shape of the head, which was mustalid. Its head also happened to be twice the size that it should be, easily. The long muzzle gaped open in an angry snarl to reveal row after row after row of sharp, jagged, discolored teeth.

"Bad!" it roared, voice echoing off the walls of the enclosed space like a cannon's blast. Then it lunged out, trying to grab the Villa canine inside its jaws. Lee managed to dodge the attack, yelping in shock as he got a better look at the thing. It pulled - heaved - itself out of the water and seemed even more bizarre. It had the body of an otter, if said otter had swum around in radioactive waste for a little while. For one, it was about fourteen feet long from snout to tail-tip. For another, it had spines protruding from its back, talons on its paws, and seemed to be the world's spikiest gargantuan otter. It wasn't a hard title to acquire, really.

"Bad people!" it howled again, slamming its tail down on the ledge of rock that led into the water and shattering it like ice. It was also incredibly strong, evidently. How nice.

[seraaches]

"Oh, #*$(%. He actually repeated that quite a few more times in his mind based first of all when Leland was attacked, and yet again when the thing came clambering out of the water. Wot the *#&$ was this thing? He glanced swiftly back towards the ghost child, wanting to see if there was any hint from him what was going on.

Nevertheless, he charged forward to help distract the thing, regardless of his own personal danger. Snot, he did not want to be bitten. Actually, from the glance he'd just gotten, he'd bet none of them wanted to be. Even if the bite didn't kill them, the chance of infection was exceedingly high. Terribly high.

#*$%!

"Heyla, bucko," the stallion called out, tail lashing to the side as he sought to get the monster's attention. "Get lost?" Was this the 'he' the ghost mentioned?

[Bee]

Of course things had to get interesting in the worst possible way. Mnem's first reaction was to leap back, and the second was to leap into to the air. Unimpeded flight would probably take her out of the cave faster than running on foot. But that was not the first order of business. They had wanted to find monsters, to press forward, and after all their tracking they had finally managed to find something. And the big catch was apparently beyond this.

Best to try the path of least effort and violence before Shinrai was forced to really risk his tail--not that many of Mnem's best dreams hadn't involved the stallion dying in some terrible way.

If the monster was--or used to be--any manner of Card, then this might work. If not, well--nothing ventured and all that. Rai would just need to get dirty.

She tried singing at it, softly, sweetly--the voice that placated people who had previously wanted to bash her head in.