ORIGIN - wait, ain't that bad?!

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Pat.

A flash of pink-red stole through the air, immediately followed by a burning sensation that made him lift his claws up to the affected spot immediately.

"What the fuck?" Eythan immediately lowered his head, retracting his neck as if it were some sort of pool noodle and he were a cat that just had a Strange Object placed on its head (which he totally was.) "You can't just touch another dude's head like that. That's weird," the gryphon scolded, scooting away from the unwarranted contact.

@Game Master Dark

The touch brought with it magic. A flash of red-pink light, and a brief, searing pain, though it would quickly pass.

The Collector stood back upright--or as upright as he could in the low-ceilinged space, anyway--and his voice took on a harsher, though still quiet, tone. "You hold disdain for me--yet you return to me for answers. Of course my gifts have a price--everything does!" Faint vehemence, now--conviction, even. "Think, Eythan. If you find my prices unfair, then think of the prizes I offer, and imagine what they would cost to gather up yourself."

Silence, for a beat--the red eyes staring sternly--and then the Collector went on.

A price was to be paid.

"I do not know exactly what the trials were for: but I do know that there were thousands of your kind who passed them. And for each who succeeded... hundreds failed." A pause. "Those who succeeded gathered. Every few cycles, most were sent away, and they were never seen again. It was not as it is today--it was not free, it was not kind, you did not choose your own destiny." One clawed, robed arm waved off in the vaguest direction of Hydra. "As for what they do with the weak... There are those who come here and take them away. These failures are nothing but mistakes, to be erased. And as for the rest--those who did not even make it so far?" The hand turned, sweeping over the bone fortress in which they crouched.

"You need merely look around you."

@Eythan

Two things: one, Eythan didn't like being called out on his own bullshit, no matter how absolutely true it was that he kept coming back to this tall asshole; two, what?! The gryphon flattened his ears, and against his better judgement, sputtered out, "well---! There's not that many older... things---" He cut himself off to gesture vaguely at the Collector with the talon on his head. "--- in these caves that are actually willing to give information."

He, very wisely, shut his trap in the beat provided, and listened intently with increasing concern. If the Collector was actually bound to the contract and providing nothing but truth... yikes! Furrowing his brow in (genuinely) the least scornful manner, Eythan sat there for a moment. Keen eyes flicked about the fortresses, the pale patchwork of their architecture that much more ominous. Questions buzzed around in his head, and he hoped he was allowed to ask for further elaboration because what the fuck?

"Who's they?" He began, then gestured towards the bone fortresses, "did--- the 'failures' build these out of... y'know... others?" Okay, that was a stupid question. The Collector had said something about 'your kind' again, as if he weren't--- "our kind? Aren't you a Gembound, too?"

@Game Master Dark

"There were those who ran, and hid," the Collector said--apparently an answer. "As for whether we are the same? That will depend upon who you ask. Now--I offer you this one, last warning, Eythan."

He leaned down close. Closer. His pinprick eyes seemed to thrum with crimson energy.

"There was a time when others ran, and hid, and were tested, and failed, or vanished forever--and that time was guided by a select few, and it was guided through Hydra. Those few have returned, and that cave is reopened. Think,"he went on, and again pointed toward the hybrid, "on what that means."

@Eythan

All of a sudden, Eythan felt quite claustrophobic --- a clear side effect of the Collector taking up all of the room in this bone hut, and the fact that they had been constructed deliberately to hide from whatever "They" referred to. Ears pinning back, the gryphon's jaw tightened. He didn't care as much about the looming beast's status as a Gembound or not as he did just getting out. Keen eyes averted away from crimson pinpricks as if that would make his situation better.

Hydra's reopening... fuck, that's bad, ran as the top thought among a raging current of many others. That time spent running, testing, vanishing, hiding--- fuck. "Th-" he began, swallowing and beginning to shuffle closer to the bone-hut's doorway, "that time's coming back, isn't it?" The time of the loud ones, as the Lorekeeper would have called it. That story came forth in full force, somehow pinning his ears back further. The loud ones are back.

If he was unprepared for this knowledge... what was there to say about the rest of the Caves's denizens?

@Game Master Dark

The Collector seemed to somehow stand up straighter, taller, despite his hunch, despite the lack of space. He began to slowly pace forward in the hut as Eythan backed away--advancing on him, perhaps, or maybe only heading, too, for the exit.

But his pinprick eyes remained locked on the hybrid and, at Eythan's question, the clawed hands slowly spread. To the sides, they went, and raised, palms up, as if to say "who's to say?"

"Who can say..? But what will you do, if it is? His voice was low, a quiet thread of danger in the small space. And then, he added--in the same dagger-in-the-dark half-whisper--"You should say thank you, Eythan."

@Eythan

Eythan didn't regale the Collector with some profound answer --- mostly because he didn't have one. Even if he dipped his talons into the raging rapids of his thoughts, they caught nothing. Every single line was loosely-held, slippery like a snake or a fish in the depths. Much like a frog slips out of one's grip, words slipped out of mind, out of sight.

That wasn't how the phrase went, but that's besides the point.

He simply offered a harried --- but somewhat sincere --- "thanks" before moving closer to the hut's exit. After these awful implications, the gryphon couldn't really be bothered to hold any further conversation with anyone. How could he, if he was barely even able to stifle his rising anxieties?

If left unhindered, he'd take his swift leave, back towards the Chambers.

;exit unless stopped
@Game Master Dark

The robed figure watched Eythan go. The exit was now clear, and he stepped out of the hut, standing upright more fully.

A grin split the hood, a brief glint of pointed teeth in the darkness--and then the Collector vanished.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

the Collector exits

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