ORIGIN

The Stormbringer had been set a task, and so he'd gone about it quickly enough. The others were all in Canis, and though the dry cave (well, he'd left it raining, but still--) was full of gem-studded bones, it struck Shango that there was a far more magical place in the caves. He determined not to find the most gemstones, but the strongest. Those in Canis were littered piles, unwanted and abandoned. Surely Polaris--with its throbbing Spire and crystal-studded walls--would have the stones of more powerful Gembound? The kind the Merchant had wanted?

Almost at once, Shango found that the stones here were much, much harder to find. It took him a few hours of searching to even find a single one, and this one he nosed over carefully, touching it and considering what it might be. At length--hesitant--he reached out his magic, prodding at it, trying to sense any response.

He reeled back a bit in surprise as it reached back out for him, his magicka resonating within the simple gem. For a moment he was greedy, wondering what the gemstone might be, considering merely... keeping it for himself. He liked this one, for reasons he couldn't say, and he tucked it up in his bird-clawed "hand" before moving on.

It took another hour and a half before he found his next gemstone. While the last had been in a small pile of dark rocks, this one was up nearer the Dam. He realized that the golems there were dangerous--large, lumbering things, and he carefully kept his distance from them. Yet there were a few bones visible there, and many stones--some of which glittered and glinted.

Shango waited atop a taller rock, scalefeathered wings folded, observing the golems closely. He remained silent at his perch, peering down, and waited. His still, silent patience was that of a predator, and might have surprised those who knew him--he came across as impulsive, rash and brash, in his normal interactions. Yet he was a hunter, by nature, and he'd learned his lessons as a hatchling. So he stayed quiet and motionless, until at last he saw an opening.

Wings opened, his body tensing and leaping like a cat's, his tail lashing sharply behind him to balance him as he swept down into the pile with a quiet clatter. A golem immediately turned, and Shango quickly reached out with his magicka, looking swiftly around his immediate area for a gem that might still contain some magic within it.

He found only a weak one, and he snatched this one up with a grimace--he had no time to seek here further, the golems already stomping toward him. He flapped off rapidly again, gaining enough altitude to get back on his perch before gliding down and away from the dam.

Better, there--more stones--but worse, more dangerous.
Damn. ...Dam. Damn dam.

He secured the gemstones quietly away, looking around and remaining quite still in the shadows, to ensure that no one had seen him there. He'd flown up--or rather, jumped and flapped very hard--onto a low ledge, then climbed quietly through the darkness. Or as quietly as he could. It was rough, with hoof-bottomed feet that clacked with every step, and his faint blue glow made it even harder. But he'd done his best, and hopefully no one would know what he'd done--stashing the stones under other stones before creeping further on, barely even pausing to do so.

Shango kept one eye back on the place, but searched again across the ground below. It struck him that Gembound might sometimes drown, or be eaten, or their bones or stones might somehow wind up in the river. He wasn't the best swimmer; his wings tended to founder him, and he wasn't sure about how cold or deep or fast this river was. But a short dip should be fine, right?

Pacing along its edge, he peered into its shimmering depths. He saw nothing, at first, but again he reached out his magicka--understanding, now, how exactly this magic worked: resonating with other stones.

He found nothing--a total emptiness below. Disappointed and a little frustrated, he leaned in closer--and immediately lost his balance, slipping into the churning river with a loud splash.

Almost immediately his questions about its nature were answered. Cold? It was bitterly icy. Deep? His feet weren't hitting bottom; fast? He was already being swept downriver, his squalling cry of fearful protest choked by a mouthful of riverwater that poured into his open jaws.

For a long moment, Shango simply panicked, floundering and thrashing in the rapids. He was sucked under twice, terror and defiance twinning within him. It was fear that he might drown--and irritation that water dared attack him so. Water was rain! Rain was STORM! Storms were his! --He had no time to really think this through, but it was a vague idea in his head, as if he were being somehow betrayed by his own element. Never mind that water wasn't really Shango's element.

After a moment he twisted in the river, soaked scale-wings beating out of the surface as he summoned up his magicka again, determined to use a storm's winds to hurl himself up into the air, and away from the violent waters.

Were anyone else watching, it may have looked bizarre--from beneath the banks, a leopard-spotted creature of thorns and black-green scalefeathers simply hurled high into the air, streams of water pouring from it, before the wings snapped open with a spray.

A choking, angry screech echoed out from Shango as he twisted midair, directing and gliding along the warm thermal, landing with another clatter of hoofed bird-feet on the banks.

Soaked, a distinct "angry cat" look to him, he turned and stared accusingly back at the river.

"DON'T DO THAT," he shrieked at it, demandingly--and then coughed up some water.

Shango rested for a time before going back to his search. He hadn't been in the water long, but it had been a shock--unsettling, to say the least. Now he avoided it, instead wandering here and there around the Spire. He still kept his shadowed ledge in view, though it was much farther, now, and he cast out his magic now and again in his search for stones.

He was still a bit out from the Spire itself, making ever-closing circles toward it, but he paused when his magicka sparked brightly off of something in the rock below. He loped over to it, sniffing and digging, following this sense until he'd uncovered another stone. It wasn't extremely powerful, thrumming like the Spire, but it seemed to him to be quite strong nonetheless--about the same as the first he'd found.

Pleased, he turned and made his way back to his ledge. It took him a bit of time to get there--the gliding, and climbing, and slinking about--but eventually, he did.

Shango pulled all three stones together, tucking them into one birdlike forelimb, before turning and gliding back down toward the Spire.

One weak. Two strong, he thought to himself. He wanted a few more strong ones, before he came back at all.

Closer and closer to the Spire he came, circling back and forth and nearer to its base. He could feel its pull growing stronger--a powerful hum of magicka each time he searched with his own--to the point that it was hard, now, to pick out individual gemstones from the overpowering near-roar of its strength.

Shango had to concentrate, now: to focus harder than he'd ever really needed to, before. He soon became absorbed in this, his brow furrowed, glowing green-white eyes picking over the rock. His thorned, scale-fanned tail lashed slowly, catlike, behind him. Now and then he took brief "flight," hopping up and flapping, then gliding down to a nearby point.

Each cluster of pebbles, each clump of crystal, he checked over carefully. Eventually, while closely examining another small pile, he located another living gemstone: this one hummed almost as strongly as the first, and similarly to the last. He picked this up, adding it to his small (if clumsy) collection, and--satisfied that his superior strategy was paying off--he moved on.

Shango had, eventually, come quite close to the Spire. He'd been searching for a couple of hours, now--bar the rest after his river-fall--but wasn't yet tiring. He was a hunter, after all, and a wanderer; much of his free time was spent in Eridanus' trees, climbing, stalking and gliding along the highest canopy. So this wandering around on the ground wasn't all that hard, for him.

The swimming had sucked, though.

Once near the Spire he was careful not to go too close. He'd been given warnings, before--warnings that this was a Stone that Bit, that it'd lash out and harm those that either got too near, or who dared to touch it. So he slunk about near its base, lurking near but not so close that it might, indeed, bite him. Instead he searched the rubble at its bottom.

Who knew; maybe someone who'd died to it might have left a stone behind? Maybe others had gotten too close, maybe powerful others, and had died there. Or maybe weak Gembound had died, and the Spire'd made their rocks stronger? --Shango really didn't know how any of this worked.

His magicka echoed, thrumming into something close by. Quickly he crouched down, creeping under a rocky overhang. Beneath were crumbled stones, and among them, a single, glittering gemstone. It was from this that the magicka was resonating, and Shango quickly scratched it out from among the rest, adding it to his small collection.

I was right. The strongest ones are here, he thought to himself, smugly.

Shango searched fruitlessly for awhile longer before deciding to find a truly safe place to house his stones, and to rest.

He headed away from the Spire, though not too far. Along the wall were ledges, and after a good amount of panting, scratching, climbing and jump-gliding, he'd managed to make his way up into a fairly hidden niche. There he curled up, settling in to examine the stones that he'd found.

Shango had rested, he felt, enough. His head ached a little, as did his stone--the horns twisting up from his skull. He supposed that had to do with how much magic he was using--or maybe the proximity of the Spire? Shango had never used all that much magic in one go, before. Usually it was an exultant clap of thunder, or a rainfall pouring around him, or at times a gust of wind or crack of lightning. He rarely just sat down and cast consecutively, so he wasn't quite sure if that's what was wearing him down.

He carefully secured the stones. These, he'd spent time looking over. They were all pretty, in their own way, though the peridot's color deeply appealed to him for reasons he could not say. The aquamarine he was attached to, so this and the peridot he pushed aside, in their own neat little pile behind a separate rock. The chalcedony, the chrysoprase (another pretty one, he thought) and the needlessly-grim-looking bloodstone he put behind another.

It was time to go back to his hunt. The Masked Merchant hadn't clarified just how many stones he'd need... so Shango was determined to just find as many as he could.

Quietly he spread scalefeathered wings, pausing a moment at the lip of the ledge to gaze down into Polaris and choose his direction.

The Dam had proven too dangerous, and the river was quite clearly a sinister, living serpent of a beast. He'd had luck enough beneath the Spire, so again he leapt and glided straight out toward its base.