The cave wall. It whispered.
Dripping rock, past a tangle of the tunnel's trees: it whispered.
"DEAT? ?S A ?IE? TH? ?A?N I΄ ET?R?ALϱ."
An old chant, familiar to some in its cadence. Over and over, it whispered, each syllable threading through the passage.
"DEAT? ?S A LIE TH? ?A?N I΄ ET?R?ALϱ."
Incoherent, a susurrus of sound. Beckoning, ominous and mysterious.
"DϵATH IS A LIE THϕ PA?N IS ET?RNALϱ..."
Wilder's magic grants her a strange sensation: there is no active magic being cast, no, but it would feel as though something powerful was echoing through the walls, just as the whispered words were. There was no elemental magic to it, only a thrumming, sparking strangeness. Yet this power was moving, shifting in jerky, unpredictable movements a few feet this way and that.
It didn't feel esoteric or arcane. It felt... wrong, and her senses were the only thing that would alert her to guard herself in the moments before they began spilling from the walls.
Stones crumbled, vines ripping aside, and one by one, Echoing Grays began to tumble into Tunnel F. But they were not just rats: their eyes were maddened, glistening black; gleaming black gemstone that glinted with dull rainbow hues jutted in huge, jagged clusters from their heads, their bodies, their limbs. It wasn't Oilstone; inspection with a critical eye by anyone familiar would show it was a little duller, bearing none of the hysterical Chaos that came with the Creator's rock. No, this was something seething with Gembound energy, something that drove the maddened Grays in staggering, empty-faced, drooling ferocity for Wilder.
Those in the front came for her even as more pushed and fell through the cave walls, all of them stumbling, hissing, repeating the same jarring and distorted phrase:
"DϵATH ϕS A LIϵ. THϵ PAϕN IS ETϵRNAL."
______
Six Echoing Grays have pushed into Tunnel F and are approaching Wilder aggressively; more may be behind them in the walls. Wilder's magic gives her forewarning so that she may act before they reach her.
@Wilder
Claws scrabbled at the rock, bodies thudding into the new wall one at a time. Gleaming eyes stared up at Wilder, nothing but madness in them. The Grays began to leap: falling just short, but each spring taking them fully four or more feet into the air. Forepaws snatched for the ledge's lip, but missed, again and again.
Six more rats tumbled from the wall, staggering, hissing, all of them repeating back the same phrase over and over--sometimes distorted beyond recognition, sometimes chillingly clear. The thud of their flanks and haunches on stone as they threw themselves forward played a horrid drumbeat to their words. The dozen Lessers leapt, and leapt, falling short and leaping again, their rainbow-hued black stones gleaming.
@Wilder
The empty-eyed Grays fell still, all at once: a strange communal silence fell over them. They stared up at Wilder, a forest of little gray bodies and jutting black stone, and a strange sense of desperation seemed to ripple through them.
"DϜиᛌT LEA᳒ϲϜ ME ALᚲNe..." A garbled pleading filled the air, echoed by each and every gray-furred rat.
They took a collective breath, sitting there staring up like a classroomful of gruesomely mutated students, and then said again, a little clearer:
"DØиᛌT LEA᳒VϜ ME ALØNe..."
Despite their shared words, their dark eyes remained wholly empty.
@Wilder
Wilder's mind connected, strong; she would gather up two powerful sensations at once.
The first was that of shouting into an empty den: her thoughts cast out into the unknown, ricocheting through the Lesser's mind like a hollow echo in the dark. It latched onto nothing; her assurance was given and remained, ringing through the creature's vacant mind.
The second sensation was another echo, in turn: as if someone else, someone just like her, had cast their own thoughts into the creature's mind. As if that thought, too, rang and bounced through this now-abandoned consciousness, filling it with ideas beyond the creature's understanding.
Don't leave me.
Death is a lie. The pain is eternal.
The flesh is weak.
Don't leave me.
Don't leave me...
She might then understand, staring into their own blank eyes, that there was nothing left in these creatures--nothing but another echo, a voice cast in that had driven all else out. They were, for a lack of better word, become like zombies. Ahh, but there was one other thought: a distant thought, a concept vague in their understanding, a desperate idea that another Gembound's lesser magics might have missed.
Cepheus.
The creatures turned, almost as one: they began to shuffle back into their hole, and yet looked back to Wilder, as if waiting; and in garbled tones, they spoke again:
"DØи'T LEAVE ME A᳒LØиE."
@Wilder